Confucianism and Chinese Civilization 0804708908, 9780804708906

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Confucianism and Chinese Civilization

Confucianism and Chinese Civilization Edited by Arthur F. Wright

Stanford University Press, Stanford, California

This volume consists of selections from David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action ( Stanford, 1959), Arthur F. Wright, ed., The Confucian Persuasion (Stanford, 1960), and Arthur F. W right and Denis Twitchett, eds., Confu­ cian Personalities (Stanford, 1962). Initially issued with the present Introduction by Atheneum Publishers in 1964, it was reissued in 1975 by Stanford University Press.

Stanford University Press, Stanford, California © 1959, 1960,1962, 1964 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America Cloth I S B N 0-8047-0890-8 Paper i s b n 0-8047-0891-6 l c 75-6317

CONTENTS

Introduction ARTHUR F. WRIGHT

VU

Part One. Ideas and Values Some Polarities in Confucian Thought B E N J A M IN SCHWARTZ

3

Part Two. Institutions An Analysis of Chinese Clan Rules: Confucian Theories in Action H U I-C H E N WANG LIU

16

Confucianism and the Chinese Censorial System CHARLES O. HUCKER

50

Part Three. Arts and Letters Confucian Elements in the Theory of Painting JAMES F. CAHILL

77

T ang Literati: A Composite Biography HANS H. FRANKEL

103

Traditional Heroes in Chinese Popular Fiction ROBERT RUHLMANN

122

Part Four. Men and Power Sui Yang-Ti: Personality and Stereotype ARTHUR F. WRIGHT

158

Feng Tao: An Essay on Confucian Loyalty WANG GUNGWU

188

Contents

vi

From Myth to Myth: The Case of Yüeh Fei’s Biography HELLMUT W ILHELM

211

Part Five. Protest and Dissent Protest Against Conventions and Conventions of Protest DAVID S. NIVISON

227

Confucian Eremitism in the Yüan Period FREDERICK W. MOTE

252

Part Six. A Traditions End The Suggestiveness of Vestiges: Confucianism and Monarchy at the Last JOSEPH R. LEVENSON

Notes Contributors

291 317 365

Arthur

"Wright

INTRODUCTION

The essays in this volume are a selection from studies of the Confucian tradition published over the last several years by the Com­ m ittee on Chinese Thought of the Association for Asian Studies. The Committee was formed in 1951 and completed its work in 1962. It was supported until 1957 by the Committee for Comparative Studies of Cultures and Civilizations of the University of Chicago, and thereafter by the Rockefeller Foundation. The scholars who formed the Committee sought a deeper under­ standing of key Chinese ideas and of the influence of those ideas, on patterns of behavior, on the formation of institutions, and on the many men who, by their cumulative efforts, built the great and distinctive civilization of China. As the Committee’s work proceeded, we moved into areas of Chinese history and culture that had been little explored, and we found some striking new relationships between historical data and ideas. But after five research conferences and the publication of five symposium volumes, we know we have only made a start. Vast reaches of time and phenomena remain to be explored. The tables of contents of our successive volumes reproduced at the end of the book provide a synopsis of the Committee’s work from our early tentative efforts to our more intensive studies of the Confucian tradition. At each stage we sought out scholars whose interests were tending to converge on common problems; each conference provided an opportunity for them to subject their ideas to discussion and criticism from those at work on related subjects. In recent years we were able to invite scholars from abroad, so that our last three volumes contain articles by scholars of eight nations. The selection of twelve essays from the thirty-five that make up our three volumes on Confucianism was made on the basis of recommenda­ tions from all the authors who contributed to the three volumes. Some superlative essays have necessarily been omitted. Hopefully, readers of this volume will be stimulated to turn to the original volumes for the essays we could not reprint.

viii

A R T H U R F . W R IG H T

The historic civilization of China developed over more than three millennia. Sometime before 1500 B.C. scattered settlements of Neolithic tillers came to be organized into larger political and territorial units centered on walled towns. These towns with their surrounding farm­ lands were eventually knit together in the political and cultural order of Shang. In the eleventh century B.C., the Shang gave way to the Chou, which set up a more elaborate system of regional hegemonies subordinate to the Chou king and his clan. The rapid advance in technology, arts, and communication under the Chou rent its political fabric asunder and ushered in the period of the Warring States (481-221 B.C.), China's classical age. This period saw the first great flowering of Chinese specu­ lative thought. Among its seminal thinkers were Confucius and the two great developers of his ideas, Mencius and Hsiin-tzu; Mo-tzu, who pro­ pounded a new ethic for a new society; the classical Taoists, who found in Nature the model for a better human order; and the Realists or Legal­ ists, who foreshadowed the modem totalitarians in their exaltation of state power. The Realists were the architects of the first unified empire of China, in 221 B.C. But it was the Confucians who developed from that beginning the social and political order of imperial China, an order that was to endure for more than two thousand years. The Confucian social order consisted of two main classes: the peasant masses, who produced food and cloth and provided soldiers and corvée laborers as the state needed them; and a numerically small elite, which had a monopoly of literacy, statecraft, and administrative skills. The elite was intensely jealous of its prerogatives and sought always to prevent new classes or groups from attaining power in society. Small intermediate groups were grudgingly allowed: merchants, artisans, the military. But the elite repeatedly insisted on the economic primacy of agriculture (they enjoyed landed income as well as official salaries), and on the subversive and parasitic character of other occupations. The literate elite, early in the development of the imperial order, had entered into an alliance with monarchy. The monarch provided the sym­ bols and the sinews of power: throne, police, army, the organs of social control. The literati provided the knowledge of precedent and statecraft that could legitimize power and make the state work. Both the monarch and the literati were committed to a two-class society based on agricul­ ture. This alliance was often uneasy and sometimes broke apart, but since each party was indispensable to the other s welfare, it was always renewed. The division of labor and the division of power just described were norms to which society and state perennially returned. But this order was subject not only to the tensions between monarch and elite but also

Introduction

ix

to challenge from other social groups. Time and again, ambitious men— great landlords, religious leaders, warlords, eunuchs, merchants great and small—fought their way to power and wealth. Even the normally docile peasantry could be goaded into explosive rebellions that cost millions of lives and decades of chaos. The literati were supposed to have a monopoly on writing of all kinds, but with the invention of print­ ing and the growth of cities from the eleventh century onward, plebeian writers of popular literature began to find an audience. In short, the imperial Confucian order was more an ideal than a reality. The bland and static picture of Chinese society so often served up to Western read­ ers is a myth. Such periods of tranquility as we do encounter in Chinese history represent no more than a momentary equilibrium among all the forces at work in the society. The Confucians, to whom we now turn, were never the passive bene­ ficiaries of a changeless social order. As members of the elite, they had notable privileges and immunities, but they had to fight hard to keep them. Each generation had to deal with disruptive forces: a willful emperor who defied the established elite and relied on eunuchs or up­ starts to execute his policies; regional magnates whose power, if un­ checked, would pull the empire apart and restore the chaos of feudalism; waves of religious enthusiasm among the peasant masses, spurred on by demagogues bent on rebellion; moral flabbiness and corruption in the elite itself. How did the Confucian literatus view the world? W hat principles did he invoke in dealing with the problems of his own time? Confucians of all ages viewed the natural and human worlds as an organism made up of multitudinous interconnected parts. When any one of the parts fell from its place or was disrupted in its functioning, the harmony of the whole was impaired. Heaven, which was neither deity nor blind fate, presided over this organic whole and was a force for harmony and balance. But man was the principal agent of both har­ mony and disharmony. Out of ignorance or perversity, men could cause serious disruptions; by the application of knowledge, wisdom, and dis­ cipline, men could restore harmony. Either man in the mass or an irresponsible elite might destroy harmony, but only the learned and the wise could restore it. The wise and the learned were to be found among the Confucian elite. Their wisdom—the keys to harmony—came from two sources: from the Confucian classics, and, secondarily, from the histories and other writings that contained the past experience of the Chinese. Learning alone, it was early recognized, did not make a sage. A man became a sage only through long study and self-discipline. Proper selfcultivation developed humaneness or love (fen); it gave a man an almost

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A R T H U R F . W R IG H T

mystical empathy for his fellow men, and an acute sensitivity to all the delicately balanced forces at work in the universe. Such a man, or one approaching him in attainments, might then “govern the state and pacify the world.” Indeed, all his self-cultivation was directed precisely toward die exercise of power. Thus there devolved upon the sage, and, when a sage did not appear, upon men of lesser wisdom, the awesome duty of assuring harmony in the world. Such men had to persuade and coerce their fellow men into behavior conducive to harmony; they had to devise institutions that would promote such harmony. And they were obliged to do so in the face of appalling obstacles: capricious rulers, self-interested or heterodox men of power, upheavals of nature, alien invasions, the pressing needs of the state, the incubus of past events. W hat values did the Confucian sage or worthy assert, and what institutions did he favor, as he persisted, generation after generation, in his Sisyphean labors? Harmony, universal and unalloyed, was perhaps the highest good, but in a less abstract sense harmony meant the good society. And the good society was seen as a past utopia, a golden age, the ideally friction­ less holistic order that had existed in remote antiquity. That order was a hierarchy: state and society were fused into a seamless whole, and every man knew his place and was content. A monarch presided over the whole, next in rank came the elite, and at the base of the pyramid came the peasantry. The order was not static: Confucians insisted that the elite be open to those of moral worth. Even the monarch, in the utopia of remote antiquity, had been chosen for his merit, and the introduction of the hereditary principle in imperial times led to endless tension and discord. The basic social unit of the Confucian system was the well-ordered family. The family was seen as a microcosm of the socio-political order; the wise father was a model for the wise ruler or minister, and dutiful children were the models for properly submissive subjects who knew their place, their role, and their obligations to others. Both the family and the state were governed by the li, the norms of proper social behavior. The ancient sage-kings, it was believed, had prescribed observances, taboos, and rituals that ensured the well-being and happiness of their subjects. Later men had codified these prescriptions, creating a body of norms that provided for all social contingencies. It was the duty of the father to teach the li in the household. It was the duty of the monarch and officials to make them known to the populace so that one and all might live according to the same time-tested norms. The li, spread by fathers, village elders, and government officials, and supplemented by the discipline of ordered family life, would in turn

foster social virtues: filial submission, brotherliness, righteousness, good faith, and loyalty. Moral instruction took many forms. Conspicuously virtuous men were singled out for public recognition, exhortations to virtue were read in the villages, the Classic of Filial Piety was drummed into the young, stories of sages and other models of virtue were read by the literate and purveyed to the masses by storytellers and dramatic troupes. The power of example, of models of conduct, had been extolled by Confucius and was a basic principle of child-rearing and education in imperial China. The prime living exemplars for any age, as the Confucians saw it, were the best of the scholar-officials. Steeped in the classics and in his­ tory, shaped by stem family discipline, tempered by introspection, and sobered by their vast responsibilities, these men were thought to have the power to transform their environment, to turn ordinary folk into the path of virtue. When opportunity offered, they were expected to nurture the same virtues in their official colleagues, and even in the emperor, whom they had the obligation to admonish whenever he did violence to the li or die cardinal virtues. They were also to serve as interpreters and transm itters of the heritage, and as artists and thinkers who would adorn and enrich it. If such men prevailed, they would preside over a balanced and homogeneous order. Friction and power struggles could not occur, subversion would wither in the sunshine of the people's con­ tent, and a benign nature would smile upon a smoothly running world. The essays selected for this volume are meant to illustrate the effects of this world view and its associated patterns of behavior on the develop­ ment of Chinese civilization. They also suggest the Confucian tradition's capacity for adaptation, as well as something of its inner variety. Mr. Schwartz's essay alone deals exclusively with problems of Confucian thinking. It defines some of the continuing tensions in Confucian thought, tensions that deeply affected men’s view of the world and the choices they made. Every Confucian of every generation had to choose between self-cultivation and the pursuit of power. Yet in theory the two were reconcilable: the inner cultivation of the self was seen not as an end in itself, but as a means toward ultimate self-fulfillment in the world of action. In troubled times Confucian statesmanship was impossible, but the perfected man could still serve as a living example to his community and, more important, as teacher of a generation that might ultimately use what they learned from him to “put the world in order.” The moral imperative to effective action is one of the basic elements in the Confu­ cian tradition. One realm of action was the building of institutions consonant with the ideal Confucian order. This was not easily done, since die built-in

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A R T H U R F . W B IG H T

anomalies of the imperial system and the forces of secular change caused problems the sages had not foreseen. Mrs. Liu’s essay describes one type of idealistic institution building and what came of it. Sweeping social changes from the ninth century onward had disrupted the family struc­ ture that Confucians regarded as essential for the good society. To counteract this disruption, a movement arose to create new clan organi­ zations with carefully worked out arrangements for educating the young, caring for the aged, and maintaining moral standards. Yet it was not long before the new clans had departed decisively from the ideals of their founders. They became interest groups with tendencies to coercion and corruption; their codified rules quoted copiously from the classics, but much of what they prescribed was simply shrewd practical advice dis­ tilled from experience on the farm or in the market place. The clan sys­ tem continued down to modem times to play a role in society, but hardly the role of moral leadership that the Confucian idealists had envisioned. Mr. Hucker deals with the evolution of a key institution of the Chinese state, the censorate. Confucius had laid on the loyal minister the moral obligation of remonstrance. But he could not have foreseen the growth of the imperial bureaucracy, much less the evolution of an office that combined remonstrance with the ruler and the policing of official­ dom (a legacy of the Realists). The tragedy Mr. Hucker unfolds is that of the later imperial bureaucracy. Remonstrance all but disappeared. The emperor, however degenerate, was exalted into a demi-god; the literati lost much of their independence and self-respct; the whole fabric of state and society was weakened by corruption. Yet Confucian officials continued for four more centuries to summon up from their heritage the courage and enterprise to make their alliance with the monarchy work. The Confucians from the beginning used literature and the arts in the service of an ideal moral order. They were never unchallenged in either realm, for Taoist ideas periodically infiltrated both literature and painting, and Buddhism for several centuries had a pervasive influence on the whole of Chinese culture. Mr. Cahill shows us two phases of Confucian influence on the theory of painting. The first, lasting for die first millennium of the imperial order, was characterized by a naïve didacticism: events and men were to be painted in such a way as to encourage virtue and discourage vice. The second phase was determined by a succession of new forces in Chinese thought: the revived Taoism of the third to the fifth centuries A.D., the spread of Buddhism, and then the revival of Confucianism from the eleventh century onward. Briefly, this second Confucian theory of painting held that the quality of a painting lay in the character of the artist. One sees in a painting—whether landscape or still-life—the artist’s perfection of character. In a new con-

text and with a new, highly sophisticated vocabulary, the centrality of moral perfection was reasserted. Painting was seen as a means of express­ ing the attributes of the Confucian perfected man and of inspiring emulation. Confucian literati were both the guardians and the developers of the art of letters. They wrote the state papers, the histories, the encyclo­ pedias, the poetry, the commentaries. More than this, they were the arbiters of form, content, and taste: this poet’s work is tainted with Taoism; that author s prose is over-ornamented, decadent, unable to communicate the perfection of the sages’ teachings. Yet, as Mr. Frankel’s essay shows, there was an ambivalence in the Confucian attitude toward the literary art. Virtuosity was greatly esteemed; so was an eloquent and forceful style. But literary talent as such did not put a man in the Con­ fucian pantheon, for literary men were often failures in the world of action. They lacked the practical ability and the moral stamina that led to the highest form of self-fulfillment. Another dimension of Confucian concern with literature is illustrated in Mr. Ruhlmann’s essay. This was the effort to shape and use popular literature for Confucian social ends. Popular songs, dramas, and folk­ tales were filled with good and evil figures; the Confucians were con­ cerned to emphasize the Confucian virtues of the good and the antiConfucian vices of the evil. This meant a tension between didactic demands and the demands of versimilitude. The Confucians never fully achieved the control they sought, but the corpus of popular literature shows the tenacity and resourcefulness of their efforts. As we have seen, it was in politics that the Confucian literatus typi­ cally sought fulfillment, fame, immortality. And since the Confucians wrote the histories, statesmen and noted officials crowd their pages, pro­ viding what must be the world’s longest and most detailed account of political action. Here again moral judgments are paramount: quotations are selected from documents to highlight a moral point; biographies are grouped by moral categories; explicit moral judgment is passed on a sequence of events or on a person. Confucian historians did not set out to tam per with evidence to teach a moral lesson. Rather they were con­ vinced that there was a moral dynamic in human affairs, and that particu­ lars in accord with this assumption were inherently more credible than other particulars. Two of the three men introduced under the heading “Men and Power” have suffered from the moral preoccupations of the historians; the third has benefited from them. Sui Yang-ti (ruled 604-616) seems to us now a brilliant and creative ruler, with some not uncommon human failings. But the Confucian historians, influenced by his costly military

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A R T H U R F . W R IG H T

campaigns and building projects and the fact that he ultimately lost his throne, saw him as evil through and through. And so they made of him a minatory figure and placed him in the sequence of “bad last” rulers, a category dating from the distant past. Thus stereotyped, Sui Yang-ti found his way into popular story and drama as an arch-villain whose appearance sent thrills of horror through the audience. Feng Tao, studied by Mr. Wang, is a far different type. He was a very ordinary man, a run-of-the-mine Confucian who lived in a time of politi­ cal upheaval (882-954) and served as a high official under five successive dynasties. Near-contemporary accounts do not make him out a villain, and Feng himself deemed his record spotless. (In an autobiographical statement, he pictured himself as a Confucian paragon: filial, kind, loyal, and all the rest.) The villainous Feng Tao of Confucian tradition was die work of the Neo-Confucian moralists and historians who became in­ creasingly influential from the twelfth century onward. Passionately devoted to reforming and strengthening the Confucian moral code, these men were outraged by Feng's easy accommodation to successive rulers. They singled him out as the very embodiment of deceit, opportunism and disloyalty. Yüeh Fei (1103-41) was perhaps the first of China's "national patriotic’' heroes. Having spent the whole of his active life as a military leader against the barbarian enemies to the north of the Sung empire, he was disgraced and murdered by the Chief Minister Ch'in Kuei. Because he died in this way, the usual obituaries and eulogies were not written, and thus the record of his life is scanty. Perhaps for this very reason, there is no ambiguity about the image of Yüeh Fei in history and popular literature. He is the stalwart, single-minded, and dedicated general, as sternly kind to his troops as he was loyal to his ungrateful prince. Sui Yang-ti and Feng Tao became minatory figures, while Yüeh Fei became an exemplar of the heroic virtues. All lost, in the process, some of their traits as believable human beings. The Confucian tradition permitted and indeed encouraged certain varieties of protest. Two of these varieties are illustrated in the papers by Mr. Nivison and Mr. Mote. Mr. Nivison's study of the tradition of protest against the examination system illustrates again the continual tension between Confucian ideals and reality. Some critics urged a return to a simpler society, to the moral order envisioned by the sages, in which men of virtue were recognized, recommended, and employed without benefit of examination. Others felt that the ancient moral order was gone beyond recall and that the examination system should be reformed to turn out more men of intellectual and moral stature, and fewer memorize», parroters, and the products of cram schools. No extreme positions were

Introduction

xv

taken: neither the Taoist position that the organized social order might be dispensed with, nor the Realist position that men should be chosen simply for their ability to operate the machinery of the state. The Confucians of imperial China, though heir to many of the institutions of the Realist state, clung to an intermediate morality, the perfected man in the state’s service. Mr. Mote deals with the reactions of Confucians in an age of cata­ clysm—the period of Mongol rule, 1279-1368. The Confucian classics provided ample sanction for withdrawal from active life: indeed, with­ drawal was the only course open to a man of integrity who failed to find an upright prince to serve. The Neo-Confucianists of the twelfth century had gone even further: by their lights it was immoral for a man to serve more than one ruler in any circumstances (hence their harsh treatm ent of Feng Tao). Both diese sanctions were employed by Confucians to avoid service under the hated Mongols. But a Confucian in retreat still felt an obligation to society and to his heritage. So these men studied, taught, and wrote, in the hope that the teachings of the sages would survive and a body of men versed in them would be available when a new regime appeared. In a tradition’s end, as in its origins and growth, there may be clues to its basic character. Mr. Levenson’s study of the “love-death’’ of Con­ fucianism and monarchy reviews the long and uneasy alliance between the monarchy and the Confucian literati. In Yiian Shih-k’ai’s belated effort to revive die monarchy in 1916, Mr. Levenson sees the dissolution of both parties to the alliance. The creed of the Confucian literati dis­ solved with the collapse of the social order for which that creed was meaningful. The monarchy was destroyed by its century of ineptitude, its freight of anachronisms, and its final capitulation in 1911. Imperial Confucianism was a strong and supple creed, strong enough to impose its values, supple enough to adjust to changing circumstances for over two thousand years. If it broke some worthy men and condemned others to frustrating lives, it also provided the normative ideas that brought Chinese society back, again and again, to long periods of stability and creative achievement. As the central tradition of the mas­ sive human achievement that we call Chinese civilization, it deserves our attention and our respect.

Confucianism and Chinese Civilization

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Benjamin Schwartz yr

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SOME POLARITIES IN CONFUCIAN THOUGHT

V

>r V T One of the striking insights that have emerged from the comparative study of thought is the realization that what might be called the problem of founders and followers is both universal and perennial. W hether we deal with Confucianism or Buddhism, Christianity or Marx­ ism, we are soon confronted with certain characteristic questions. How do the interpretations of the followers relate themselves to the original or “primitive” teachings of the founders? Or, conversely, can the origi­ nal teachings of the founders be extricated from the interpretations of the followers? Questions of this nature come up even in an intellectual tradition as close to our own time as Marxism, where all the utterances of the founder are extant and available. Everywhere we find claims that certain interpretations represent the true tradition while others are par­ tial or total distortions. Everywhere we find generations which revolt against w hat they regard as the formalized, unauthentic perversions of the original vision and which attem pt to recapture that vision in its pristine freshness—only to be accused of one-sidedness and distortion by their successors within the tradition. Often, when confronted with the incubus of interpretations, schools, and sects which has accumulated over the ages, one is tempted to give up the search for any underlying unity. The social historian may be quite content to study later interpretations in terms of the interests and preoccupations of given times and places without attempting to relate these interpretations to the original doctrine or to the tradition as a whole. In China, for example, one might treat the Neo-Confucian de­ velopments of the Sung period simply as a manifestation of the social and cultural situation of that period. Im portant as it is to place a given mode of thought in its historical setting, an exclusively historical approach eliminates a whole living dimension of the intellectual situation. The Neo-Confucianists were not interested'in creating “Neo-Confucianism”; they were deadly serious in their effort to recapture the original Confucian vision. It would be un-

4

B E N J A M IN S C H W A R T Z

safe to assume that in carrying out their attem pt to relate their own preoccupation to the Confucian tradition as a whole they were neces­ sarily greater fools or knaves than we. Their thought must be under­ stood both in the context of the times and in terms of the Problematik inherent in the tradition as a whole. There are, of course, tendencies that bear no relationship—or only a tenuous relationship—to the tradi­ tion and that nevertheless insist on appropriating the name. The outer limits of any stream of thought are seldom obvious, and certain tend­ encies may hover on the edge between the stream in question and other streams. Within the Chinese world of ideas Confucianism seems to blend at one of its edges with Taoism and at the other with Legalism. In order to discern the limits, however, we must have some grasp of the Problematik of the tradition as a whole; and to achieve such a grasp, we must have the courage to be ahistorical—at least provisionally. We must be willing to confront ideas with each other across the centuries, suspending for a moment our concern with specific historical contexts. We must be willing to confront Confucius with Wang Yang-ming and Wang An-shih with Ku Yen-wu. The founder himself is seldom an academic philosopher bent on building a rigidly coherent system. More often than not, he is simply a man seized with an overwhelming vision which he must proclaim. He is not necessarily concerned with the mutual consistency of all his utter­ ances, and on many problems his thought may be fruitfully ambiguous. Therein may lie one of the secrets of his greatness. Nor is he generally concerned with aspects of reality which do not impinge on his vision. It is generally the followers who assume the burden of defending the vision against hostile challenge and who must attem pt to relate the vision to those aspects of experience which the founder has left out of account. If the vision is accepted by a whole society and becomes an “official” philosophy, the problem of relating it to new realities becomes particularly acute. Such a problem arose when Confucianism became the official philosophy of a centralized bureaucratic state—a state which hardly embodied the Master s own vision of the ideal polity. In the course of defending and applying the vision, many of the problems im­ plicit in it become explicit and many of its inner polarities come to the surface. Confucianism was such a vision and such a philosophy. In the fol­ lowing pages I shall use the metaphor of polarity to deal with certain themes within Confucianism which seem to me to be of some impor­ tance. We cannot use words such as antithesis, contradiction, and di­ chotomy because the alternatives in question were regarded by the Master and by most orthodox Confucianists not as antithetical but as

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

5

inseparably complementary. And yet, over the course of the centuries it became obvious that tensions existed between the poles in question; that some men gravitated to or toward one pole rather than the other in spite of their nominal commitment to both. SELF-CULTIVATION AND THE ORDERING OF SOCIETY

A central polarity in such works as the Analects is the polarity of self-cultivation ( hsiu-shen, hsiu-chi ) leading to personal self-realization (the attainm ent of the highest virtues of jen or cheng, and the ordering and harmonizing of the world ( chih-kuo ping t’ien-hsia). This polarity could fully concern only those with a vocation for political and cultural leadership—the superior men, or chiin-tzu. It is, of course, true that Confucius speaks of “teaching” the people (e.g., in Analects, Book XIII, chap, ix); w hat they are to be taught, however, is presumably no more than the rudiments of proper family relationships. They are hardly in a position to achieve the extensive cultivation required for the achievement of full self-realization, and it is obvious that only those in public office can do anything substantial to order human society. In the Analects and in the Great Learning the two aims form two parts of an indivisible whole. In the latter work we find a logical pro­ gression from one to another; and Confucius himself states that “he ( the superior man ) cultivates himself in order to give rest to the people” {Analects, Book XIV, chap. xlv). The superior man can achieve com­ plete self-realization only in his public vocation. It might indeed be stated that a commitment to public service—even when such service is unattainable—forms one of the basic criteria distinguishing the Con­ fucian ideal of self-cultivation from some competing ideals in the Chinese world. Conversely, society can be harmonized and set in or­ der only when men who have approached the ideal of self-realization are in public office. Here we find what may seem to many the extrava­ gantly “idealistic” view of government so peculiar to Confucianism— a view which sees in government primarily an agency for bringing to bear on society as a whole the moral influence of superior men through the power of moral example and of education. Theory was one thing, practice another. The central tragedy of the M asters own life was his failure to find any opportunity to fulfill his public vocation in a manner in keeping with his superior attainments in the realm of self-cultivation. The superior man is not always blessed with “times” ( shih) propitious for the public employment of his talents. The times will remain out of joint so long as superior men are not in positions of responsibility, but such positions are not to be attained when the times are out of joint. There is here an element of fate which

6

B E N J A M IN S C H W A R T Z

lies beyond human control. Confucius himself, however, offers a con­ crete model of how the superior man behaves in such periods. He does not give up his attempts to fulfill his vocation. Beyond that, he con­ tents himself with achieving as high a degree of self-cultivation as possible, while fulfilling his role as teacher and preserver of the Way. This tragic motif in the life of Confucius was to be repeated in the lives of innumerable idealistic Confucian gentlemen down through the centuries. W ithin the centralized bureaucratic state of the post-Ch m period, the times were frequently unfavorable in the eyes of truly dedi­ cated chiin-tzu. We do not assume that such “idealists” were more numerous in China than elsewhere. In China as elsewhere, however, it was usually the idealist who worried himself about the yawning abyss between the ideal and the actual. Men soon came to wonder whether it was in fact possible to pursue the goals of self-cultivation and of set­ ting the world in order with equal hopes of success. Furthermore, as the bureaucratic machinery of the imperial state became more articu­ lated and complex, there soon emerged, on the level of practice, the problem of whether the self-cultivation of the superior man, which was based primarily on his conscientious adherence to the prescriptions of proper behavior ( Zi), was qualification enough for an official post which seemed to call for training in professional statecraft and various special­ ized skills. Did not the “ordering of society” require some sort of pro­ fessional science of government? Self-cultivation in private life was all very well, but how could its influence be brought to bear within this type of state? A debate involving this issue came to a head in the controversies of Wang An-shih and his enemies during the Northern Sung dynasty. While this debate was undoubtedly strongly enmeshed with social and economic interests, in this paper we are concerned with its ideological aspects. Again, it must be stressed that neither side in the debate ever explicitly renounced either pole of our polarity. If Wang An-shih was convinced that society could be improved only by reforming its way­ ward institutions and enacting new laws, if he was convinced that pro­ fessional statecraft was essential, he never on that account renounced the aim of self-realization. His opponents, while attacking his empha­ sis on professional specialization and his reliance on institutional ma­ chinery, for the most part maintained their dedication to the perfection of society. There were, to be sure, borderline cases—men like the mysti­ cal Chou Tun-i (1017-73), who renounced all public office to devote himself exclusively to a life of philosophic meditation and self-cultiva­ tion—but the typical statesman had a foot in both camps. Wang An-shih’s more prominent enemies, for example, for all their emphasis on the

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

7

virtues of self-cultivation and moral excellence as a means of ordering society, had definite notions in the realm of what might be called state policy ( chih-shu ). These notions will be discussed in greater detail below. At this point it need simply be noted that those who stressed self-cultivation were not all indifferent to the institutional setting of society or the proper policies of state. One even finds among them “feudal Utopians”—men like Liu Chih (eleventh century) and many Sung Neo-Confucians—who look back to the idealized social order of the Chou period as the only order in which the self-cultivation of the chün-tzu can be made a force for the salvation of society. W hile both sides claim commitment to both poles, however, they tend to accuse each other ( often quite rightly) of glaring one-sidedness. In the eyes of his opponents Wang An-shih was a man indifferent to his own moral cultivation and the moral cultivation of his subordinates, a man who relied on machinery to achieve the goals of society. His goal, furthermore, was not the Confucian “ordering of society” but the Legal­ ist goal of “wealth and power.” To Wang An-shih, his opponents were selfishly absorbed in their own self-cultivation at best, or in their own interests at worst, and unwilling to support the institutional reforms that were indispensable to social order and harmony. THE INNER AND OUTER REALMS

The polarity of self-cultivation and the ordering of society concerns the ideals of the superior man—his life aims. The polarity of the “inner” ( nei) and “outer” (tvai) concerns the two realms of reality which bear most immediately on the achievement of these ideals. The two polari­ ties are intim ately related, but their relationship is complex. One cannot assume that even those overwhelmingly concerned with self-cultivation will be exclusively concerned with the “inner” realm, or their adversaries with the “outer.” The first elucidation of this polarity can be found in the famous de­ bate of Mencius and Kao-tzu which appears in Book VI of Mencius. The key problem is the relation of the “inner” realm to the “outer” in accounting for the bases of human culture. Both realms are touched on in the sayings of Confucius, but nothing is said of the relation be­ tween them. Living in a later century, when the vision of the Master had already come under serious challenge, men like Mencius and Kaotzu were forced to deal explicitly with problems which remain implicit in the Analects. The polarity which first emerged in this debate was then carried forward in the discussions of Hsiin-tzu. The outer realm is the objective social and cultural order, and in the first instance, the li, the binding tissue of objective prescriptions,

8

B E N J A M IN S C H W A B T Z

rules, rites, and mores which holds that order together. The social order in question is specifically the ideal social order which in Confucius* judgment had been realized in actuality during die early Chou period. Interestingly enough, Mencius, Kao-tzu and Hsiin-tzu all accepted the nature of this objective order as an unquestioned datum. The point on which they differed was the relation of this outer realm to the inner, the innate spiritual and moral capacities of the individual human being considered in isolation from the objective, normative cultural order. Was the outer realm an outgrowth of capacities and potentialities pres­ ent in the inner realm, or was the moral content of the inner realm largely a product of culture? The question was by no means an aca­ demic one. Men had strayed from the Way; how was one to go about leading them back? To Mencius, the good social order was the outer manifestation of spiritual and moral capacities innate in the individual human being. In Western terminology we might say that the natural law is imprinted on the human heart. To Kao-tzu the individual human being consid­ ered in isolation was nothing but a collection of rudimentary biological appetites. The objective cultural order could not be explained in terms of the capacities of the individual; on the contrary, the social and cul­ tural order had an autonomous life of its own (as many modem schools of sociology believe it has), and human capacities were a result of the "internalization” of the values inherent in the order. Hsiin-tzu goes still further: not only can one not explain human culture in terms of the innate capacities of the individual, but the individual’s propensities actually run counter to the aims of higher culture (it is in, this sense that human nature is bad), and it is only with considerable difficulty that he is transformed into a child of culture. It is interesting to note that in dealing with the outer realm all three men concerned themselves primarily with the li. Although the li, to be sure, are part of the outer realm, they are only a part. Even in the Ana­ lects we have some discussion of hsing, penal law, and of cheng, govern­ ment in the sense of state policy and concern for proper institutions. Yet Confucius himself, like Mencius and Kao-tzu, was overwhelmingly concerned with the li, for although the li are part of the outer realm they represent an essentially moral force. To the extent that the li can be successfully implemented, penal law and institutional devices can be de-emphasized. Hsiin-tzu had essentially the same attitude; where he differed with Mencius was over the type of “educational” philosophy required in order to realize the moral order. Whereas Mencius felt that a gentle regimen was all that was required in order to get men to be­ have properly, Hsiin-tzu called for draconian educational methods em-

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

9

phasizing discipline and a detailed and explicit working out of the rules of behavior. To both, however, education in the li was a central factor. Hsiin-tzu, however, was by no means willing to rely wholly on the li. His conception of the outer realm embraces the four categories li, yiieh, hsing, and cheng—“rites,” music, penal law, and government. He tends in particular to place a high valuation on the coercive force of penal law as a supplement to li in achieving social order and harmony. In the generation immediately following Hsiin-tzu we find a decided shift of commitment from rites and music to laws and government. This shift was the work of the so-called Legalists, two of whom—Han Fei-tzu and Li Ssu—were reputedly disciples of Hsiin-tzu. The Legalists de­ parted altogether from Confucianism: not only were they completely in­ different to the inner realm and committed to the outer realm to the extent of championing brute force and institutional conditioning, but their very ends were no longer Confucian ends. Their goal was a wealthy and powerful state, not the Confucian vision of an ordered world of peace, harmony, and simple contentment. In a world where the great powers of the W arring States period were girding themselves for the final battle, they offered themselves as experts in the arts of enriching and strengthening the state. They strove to create a “rationalized” military and state machine, and to bring the masses into line by a severe system of penal law on the one hand and incentive awards for good performance on the other. From their point of view the whole fabric of the li was entirely irrational and irrelevant. The distinction between means and ends which we have just made must be underlined if we are to understand the controversies stirred up by such figures as W ang An-shih. To the more orthodox line of Sung Confucianists any heavy reliance on laws and institutions was evidence of the desire to achieve Legalist ends. The Legalist philosophers and the C bin dynasty had established a close association between the two. In their view, W ang was clearly a Legalist; his insistence on new laws and institutions put him on the outer side of the outer realm. However, he and the other Sung “utilitarians” argued in effect that they were not Legalists since their end was to “order society” in terms of the Confucian image of the good order. Confucius himself, after all, had not entirely neglected laws and institutions. Wang’s case was somewhat weakened by the fact that many of his proposed reforms were in fact aimed at “wealth and power.” He argued, however, that his emphasis on wealth was tied to the legitimate Con­ fucian goal of assuring the people’s livelihood, and that the defense of the realm was necessary to the achievement of peace and harmony. His

10

B E N J A M IN S C H W A R T Z

opponents argued that he had committed himself to both Legalist means and Legalist ends. It must be emphasized again that just as Wang An-shih’s opponents by no means renounced the goal of “ordering the world,” neither did they reject all concern for the outer realm. They were, of course, deeply committed to the objective prescriptions of the Zi, which they regarded as the sine qua non of self-cultivation. Beyond this, many of them had very positive ideas about how the state should be governed. One must here draw a distinction between a concern for the general institutional setting of human behavior and the belief that human behavior can be completely conditioned by institutional devices and laws. Confucius’ own judgments take for granted an acceptance of the institutional frame­ work of the early Chou period, but he does not assume that the presence of the framework guarantees the presence of the Way. W hat is desired is an institutional framework which will facilitate the influence of men of superior cultivation on society as a whole. The “feudal Utopians” found the solution in an idealized Chou feudal­ ism: a state in which decision-making power is dispersed among many local rulers, each of whom confronts his Confucian ministers on a faceto-face basis and can thus be brought under their moral influence. The whole notion of the ruling class as an agency of moral example becomes more plausible within this context. On the other hand, the more realistic opponents of Wang An-shih—men like Chu Hsi—while regretfully con­ ceding that the idealized Chou order could not be revived, opposed further tendencies toward bureaucratization in the form of new laws, institutional reform, and further intervention of the state in the economy. Positively, they did their utmost to increase the influence of self-cultiva­ tion as a force in government. In their view of self-cultivation, they tended to emphasize the resources of the inner realm. Their economic policy followed the teachings of Confucius and Mencius: i.e., they accepted the notion that the uncultivated masses could be led to good social and ethical behavior only by the guarantee of a minimal level of economic security. In their opinion, this economic security could best be brought about by a “light government” policy. If government would refrain from heavy taxes, excessive corvée de­ mands, ambitious military ventures, and displays of pomp and luxury, the people would be able to create its own economic welfare, and it might then be led by a virtuous ruling class to conform to the Way. In spite of this type of concern with objective considerations, most of Wang An-shih s opponents (Ssu-ma Kuang is an exception) sided with Mencius in his view of the inner and outer realms. They were presumably concerned only with those factors in the outer realm which

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

11

they saw as inhibiting the outflow of the spiritual forces latent in the inner realm. Only the more extreme among them turned away from all concern with the outer. KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION

A third polarity that can be discerned within the Confucian tradi­ tion is the well-known polarity of knowledge and action. Here again we have no neat antithesis; here again the Master saw the two poles as complementary. Over the course of time, however, we find not only differences of emphasis, but also widely divergent notions of the nature and content of knowledge and the nature and content of action. In the Analects knowledge ( chih ) and learning ( hsiieh ), are basic values. In attem pting to revive the ideal order of the early Chou, Con­ fucius necessarily stressed the knowledge of its elements: the order could be restored only to the extent that its culture, its institutions, and its li were known. The nature of this knowledge was not theoretical and abstract but concrete and factual. Confucius’ good society was not like Plato’s Republic—an ideal construct built up step by step by a sys­ tem atic process of deductive reasoning and then contrasted to all merely “conventional” social orders. His good society had been realized in the flux of history. To know this order one had to know the facts about it. The type of knowledge required was empirical and “scholarly.” Nevertheless, the knowledge in question was by no means a chaotic heaping up of miscellaneous facts. There was the constant assertion that embedded in these facts was a coherent, underlying unity which could be apprehended by the perceptive disciple. “My Way,” states Confucius, “is that of an all-pervading unity” ( Analects, Book IV, chap, xv ). Confucius himself did not extract any system from his separate reflections on the Way; he shied away from what might be considered ontological questions, and it was left to his followers to deal with these questions. Even such early works as the Great Learning and The Doc­ trine of the Mean attem pt to furnish an abstract and reasonably logical account of the broad underlying principles of the Way. Presumably this effort to elucidate general principles was made at a time when the Master’s thought required some sort of defense against hostile challenge. W hen Mencius and Hsün-tzu devoted a great deal of attention to the question of “human nature” in spite of the Master’s silence on this sub­ ject, they were not simply repudiating the Master’s soberly “positivistic” approach. Those who were challenging Confucius’ dicta were also challenging w hat they regarded as his unstated assumptions. By the same token, the Master’s defenders felt obliged to clarify and defend these unstated assumptions.

12

B E N J A M IN S C H W A R T Z

When we turn to the Neo-Confucian philosophers of the Sung dy­ nasty, we find that they confronted the challenge of Buddhist meta­ physics in addition to the challenge of native anti-Confudan philoso­ phies. They simply assumed that if there was an “all-pervading unity” underlying the Master’s teachings, the philosophic principles involved could be abstracted from the knowledge of the facts for purposes of philosophic reflection. On the other hand, to Tai Chen (1724-77) and other “radical empiricists” of the Chm g period this effort to deal with general philosophic principles without regard to concrete facts implied a belief in a sort of self-contained realm of ideal essences. Tai Chen be­ lieved that only by clinging compulsively to the facts could one be in contact with the Way, which was inextricably imbedded in them. The discussion of abstractions apart from concrete facts was merely “empty talk.” The issue of the content of knowledge also becomes deeply enmeshed with the attitudes toward the inner and outer realms. The Neo-Con­ fucian philosophers of the Chu Hsi school were deeply committed to the importance of self-cultivation. Since the inner realm was the realm of human nature (/wing), they were naturally very concerned with the attributes of the hsing. It was precisely the inner realm of the hsingt however, which bound man to the cosmos as a whole. “What heaven confers,” states the Doctrine of the Mean, “is the hsing.” Even writers like Hsiin-tzu who denigrated the hsing conceived of it as part of the “heavenly” or cosmic order. Mahayana Buddhist philosophy probably reinforced this association. Thus to achieve a true comprehension of the hsing one must understand the ultimate nature of reality. Here we find a possible source of the Neo-Confucian concern with metaphysical knowledge. This knowledge of the principles underlying die cosmos and the hsing was of course by no means knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Like Spinoza, the Sung Neo-Confucianists sought the kind of intellec­ tual enlightenment that would free the spirit from the bonds of the af­ fects. Chu Hsi himself conceived this knowledge still more broadly. He saw it, in fact, as being encyclopedic: the ultimate organizing principles of reality could be found not only in the inner realm which attaches man to the cosmos but also behind the outer realm of rites, music, law, and government with which man must be concerned. Among the late NeoConfucianists, however, the Neo-Confucian emphasis on the inner realm became decidedly more pronounced and “knowledge” tended to become overwhelmingly a concern with metaphysical problems. On the other hand, those who were concerned primarily with the outer realm—men otherwise as different in their outlooks as Wang

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

13

An-shih in the Northern Sung and Ku Yen-wu of the early C hing— regarded knowledge of history, of the development of institutions, of the “li,” and even of law as the central focus of real knowledge. To Wang An-shih such knowledge was the knowledge most relevant to his goal of ordering society. Ku Yen-wu’s position was more complex. Al­ though, like Wang, he stressed “practical statesmanship” ( ching-shih ) and the bulk of his scholarly investigations involved the outer realm, his conception of good statesmanship was substantially that of Wang’s opponents. He favored an institutional setting which would make the self-cultivation of the chün-tzu a dominant force in human society. He did not feel, however, that individual self-cultivation required a deep concern for ultim ate metaphysical problems. Self-cultivation was pri­ marily a m atter of moral training: “In your action be guided by a sense of shame; in your learning be comprehensive.” The relationship be­ tween knowledge and the goal of self-cultivation has here become somewhat tenuous. In the century following Ku Yen-wu the acquisition of knowledge came to be exalted in some quarters almost as an end in itself, without reference to the goals of either self-cultivation or the ordering of so­ ciety. The school of empirical research (k ’ao-cheng) conceived of knowledge essentially as precise factual knowledge of the cultural heritage. Its members refused to discuss abstract principles apart from the facts, and in this regard considered themselves closer to the Master than their metaphysically inclined predecessors. In their divorce of knowledge from all the larger concerns of Confucianism, however, they certainly drifted far from the Master’s original intent. The Sung controversies also disclose divergent views of the nature and content of action. The enemies of Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming saw diem as primarily engrossed in their own self-cultivation even when they were deeply immersed in public activities—and with some justice, since both viewed the arena of public action primarily as a field for exercising their own moral musculatures, as it were. To Wang An-shih and his school, by contrast, action was primarily “social action” —the framing and administration of new laws which would affect society as a whole and not merely a given official's own arena of action. Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming were both capable and vigorous officials who performed most spectacularly in the positions they occupied, and both were very much concerned with their own performance as officials. Chu Hsi would indeed have argued that the example of a noble and capable official who does his job well is more important to the order­ ing of society than elaborate blueprints of institutional change. It is im portant to emphasize that an orientation toward the pole of

14

B E N J A M IN S C H W A R T Z

action in the Confucian tradition was not necessarily an orientation toward the general type of social and political action which modern men tend to regard as “practical.” The Tung-lin party of the late Ming period, which was deeply concerned with the social and political situa­ tion of its own times and firmly dedicated to moral action, conceived of such action largely in terms of exhorting the ruling class to honor the prescriptions of the li; it was markedly indifferent to laws and insti­ tutions. Divergent conceptions of the nature and content of knowledge and action necessarily lead to divergent conceptions of the relations be­ tween the two. To Wang Yang-ming, Chu H sis notion that only a knowledge of all the principles underlying the myriad phenomena of reality could lead to self-realization was a snare and a delusion: clearly the intellectual baggage of Chu Hsi s latter-day disciples bore little relationship to their day-to-day behavior. (One is reminded of Kierke­ gaards disgust with the Hegelian university docents who could devise philosophies of universal history but were unable to introduce any elevation into their own squalid lives. ) According to Wang, man mani­ fests his spirit by acting in the concrete situations which confront him. It is ridiculous to suppose that a whole system of universal knowledge must intervene between man and his action. This belief did not lead Wang Yang-ming to a repudiation of knowl­ edge, but it did lead him to a radical redefinition of its content. There was nothing to be gained in seeking knowledge of the sum total of dis­ crete general principles underlying all the phenomena of nature and human society; men should rather seek to know the mystic One Reality which is latent in the human spirit and which makes itself manifest whenever a man of superior spiritual insight faces up to the moral re­ quirements of the concrete situation which confronts him. Ostensibly, to adopt this view is to reject the whole outer realm (except in so far as the situation which the Sage confronts may be considered outer), and to espouse a form of transcendental individualism which might easily break out of the bounds of Confucian objective morality alto­ gether. Wang himself was not so radical. He continued to accept the “five relationships” and their outward manifestation, the prescriptions of the li. He assumed a happy coincidence between the intuitive impulses of the individual conscience and Confucian objective morality. The outer realm of die li, as he saw it, emerged direcdy from the inner realm of the human heart. Actually, among some of Wang s later followers— particularly the heterodox Li Chih ( 1527-1602)—the tendency to break out of the bounds of Confucian objective morality does indeed emerge. 1 have here dealt in a very tentative and topical manner with three

Some Polarities in Confucian Thought

15

polarities within Confucian thought which seem to have an enduring importance within the tradition as a whole. The judgments expressed are preliminary judgments and are certainly open to further scrutiny. There are undoubtedly many other themes of equal importance. The aim of this paper has been to communicate some sense of the turbulent inner life to be found within a tradition which has often been portrayed in the W est as a collection of trite copybook maxims blandly accepted in toto by innumerable generations of “scholar-officials.” Confucianism has its own Problematik which we have only begun to explore. In line with my purpose I have stressed the variety of alternatives available within the tradition. This does not mean that there is no common core of assumptions shared by almost all who call themselves Confucianists nor that there are no bounds (indistinct as these bounds may be) between Confucianism and other streams of thought. Finally, it must again be stressed that no attem pt has been made in this paper to link ideas to interest factors. However much the intellec­ tual issues discussed may have become enmeshed with individual and group interests, no apology is required for an attem pt to achieve an understanding of the ideas qua ideas.

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AN ANALYSIS OF CHINESE CLAN RULES: CONFUCIAN THEORIES IN ACTION

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the clan rules in Chinese genealogies from the viewpoint of Confucian theories in ac­ tion—in other words, to examine how and with what effect the clan rules transmitted and applied the Confucian teachings to successive generations in the various clans. The data are found in the collection of genealogies in the East Asiatic Library, Columbia University. My earlier study of the clan rules1 dealt chiefly with social control, and to a lesser extent with value schemes and group organization; the present paper is concerned above all with value schemes and their complex ramifications. For my earlier study I used only genealogies printed during the Republican years 1912-36, in order to include some account of modem changes within the surviving tradition; the present paper draws upon the entire collection, including the genealogies printed dur­ ing the Ch’ing period. The term clan rule designates any formal instruction, injunction, regulation, stipulation, or similar passage found in a genealogy which explicitly prescribes the conduct of clan members. The forms of the clan rules vary. Some are merely collections of famous quotations, imperial injunctions, excerpts from the penal code, or mottoes stated by ancestral members of the clan. Others address themselves to such concrete matters as management of the ancestral hall, regulation of common property, and common clan activities. However, the majority of them follow a standard arrangement of ar­ ticles or short paragraphs, each on a given topic indicated by a cap­ tion, an itemized heading, or the first sentence. In general, these articles extol virtuous and desirable conduct on the one hand, and condemn deviations and offenses on the other. Some lay down more concrete specifications for the conduct of family, clan, individual, and social life. A number of clan rules, though not the

Chinese Clan Rules

17

majority, stipulate measures of punishment. The predominant em­ phases of all the clan rules are two: first, upon the ideal of orderly and harmonious life in kinship groups; and second, upon the observance of proper status relationships among kinsmen. The clan rules are basically instructions. They depend on moral persuasion, and they derive their sanction from authority, that is, from such impersonal authorities as Confucianism and the law of the state as well as such personal authorities as the clan's ancestors, its formal and informal leaders, and its family heads. The punitive provisions in some of the clan rules—oral censure, ritual discipline, cash fines, cor­ poral punishment, denial of clan privileges, expulsion from the clan group, and legal indictment—are paradoxically less punitive than pro­ tective. They are designed to warn the offender, to see to it that there will be no need for the law to punish him except as a last resort The clan rules, as guidance toward ideal conduct, could not be very effective beyond a certain point, depending upon how well a given clan was organized and operated. It seems that even the clans which were sufficiently well organized and wealthy enough to have their genealo­ gies printed did not have the necessary organizational strength and appeal to make the clan rules rigidly binding upon their members. The clan rules nonetheless had an impressive normative influence, even upon members with little education.2 After the earlier aristocratic clans declined toward the end of the T ang period, the importance of the primary group was rediscovered by the Sung Confucianists, who reinstituted the clan system as a means of promoting self-cultivation, rectifying social customs, and stabilizing society. The purposes stated by these pioneers are worth quoting. Chang Tsai of the Northern Sung period said: To control the heart of the people needs the gathering of clan members and the promotion of good customs so that the people will not forget their origins. To achieve this purpose requires genealogy, clan organization, and the an­ cient system of tsung-tzu [head of the leading lineage by primogeniture as the clan head]. Without tsung-tzu, people do not know where their own lines of descent come from. Though this system has lapsed, genealogies have kept its spirit alive. If there is no genealogy, the families do not know their origins and cannot be kept together very long. Without a control among the kin, even the sentiment between parents and children tends to be weak.3

Chu Hsi, one of the great masters of Neo-Confucianism in the Southern Sung, has cited C heng I, the Northern Sung philosopher, as saying: Without the tsung-tzu as the clan head, the imperial court has no hereditary officials to depend on. If the system of tsung-tzu is revived, people will learn to respect their ancestors and value their origins, and then the court will nat-

18

H U I - C H E N W A N G L IU

urally command more respect. In ancient times, young people looked up to their fathers and elder brothers. Now the reverse is true, because people no longer respect their origins. . . . Only recognition of the relationship be* tween superior and subordinate, between high and low, can ensure order and obedience without confusion. How can people live properly without some means of control? Furthermore, the system of tsung-tzu follows the principle of nature. For example, a tree has its trunk, coming up straight from its root, as well as its side branches. A waterway, however long, has its main stream among other divergent streams. This is natural. What is needed now is for a few families of leading officials to try to revive the tsung-tzu system, that is, the system of keeping families together. One way of achieving this objective is to fol­ low the precedent of the Tang period by establishing ancestral halls and dan estates, so that the ancestral inheritance remains intact and can be managed by one chosen person. The clan members should always assemble at a monthly meeting.4

At the time of the Northern Sung, pioneer efforts were made to improve upon genealogies and to strengthen clan organizations. Ou-yang Hsiu and Su Hsün were responsible for laying down the standards by which genealogies should be compiled. Fan Chung-yen set an example by establishing i-t’ien or charitable lands and i-chuang or charitable estates to aid poor clan members. Ssu-ma Kuang in his writings drew attention to family upbringing, manners, and training. These pioneer efforts gained an increasing following during the Southern Sung period. However, the Sung genealogies, being a new growth, were rela­ tively few in number. Mostly, they limited themselves to genealogical tables and did not incorporate clan rules as such. The full development of genealogies took place during the Ming period, owing to a number of factors: the state’s interest in stabilizing the social order; the em­ phasis of the law upon the privileges and responsibilities of clans; the interest of scholar-officials in clan matters; the spread of learning among the common people; and the growing financial strength of the clans particularly in the provinces of Anhwei, Kiangsu, Kiangsi, Chekiang, Fukien, and Kwangtung, where revenue was derived from commercial as well as agricultural sources.6 The development of printing was prob­ ably another factor. Underlying many of these factors was the widen­ ing and deepening influence of Neo-Confucianism with its emphasis on family discipline and individual self-cultivation. It was perhaps in the later part of the Ming period that clan rules became a standard feature in the fully developed genealogies. This trend continued without basic change into the Ch’ing period. Several Cbm g genealogies among the present data contain clan rules of Ming date.4 Many other Ch mg genealogies added new items to the old clan rules: new compositions, new compilations of old quotations.

Chinese Clan Rules

19

imperial injunctions, excerpts from the laws, borrowed passages from the rules of other clans.7 These Ch mg genealogies, on the whole, sug­ gest that the elaboration and revision of clan rules reached a saturation point around 1880. The clan rules of subsequent date show no sig­ nificant change in substance. It may be of interest to mention in pass­ ing that the rules of a Moslem clan named Chu in Chen-chiang, Kiangsu province, save for an introductory mention of the five pillars of Islam, is not distinguishable in the least from numerous other clan rules com­ piled after 1800.8 Even after 1912, the overwhelming majority of the clan rules still abide by the old models. A few of them responded to modernization by limited adjustments deleting obsolete provisions and adding some modern features, but these adjustments were little more than futile efforts to keep an old heritage alive.9 The principal function of the clan rules is to exercise social control upon the clans individual members, and especially to provide norma­ tive orientation, with concrete specifications for proper conduct and detailed description of desirable and undesirable behavior. The rules derived mainly from the Confucian teachings; but to these they added a second layer of more specific teachings, amounting to a sort of value scheme that was more directly applicable to behavior in and beyond the kinship groups than the broader tenets of Confucianism. It is this value scheme that interests us here. THE VALUE SCHEME IN THE CLAN RULES

The generalization that the clan rules merely follow and pass on the Confucian teachings and adhere to the Confucian value scheme is an inadequate one, for it tends to obscure the flexibility of the rules, and their tendency toward making adjustments and modifications within the broad lim its of Confucianism. One clan rule concedes that “there is more than one way to achieve the essence of good family life.”10 Another recognizes that “rituals are originally based upon human feel­ ings and hence their observance should not be compulsory” regardless of circumstances.11 Several clan rules adopt the principle that both “consultation of the old, set ways and consideration of their present applicability” are desirable.12 Another, the work of an old lady and probably based upon her life experience rather than upon the Con­ fucian theories, says that “studying books should not make one follow the books in a deadly rigid manner; and in managing a family one should not adhere to deadly fixed rules.”18 The above quotations, a few examples among many, show that the olfln rules were prepared to select, restate, and reinterpret the Confu­ cian teachings to adjust them to the realities of life. Sometimes no ad-

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justment was necessary; sometimes only a slight adjustment would do; sometimes traditional Confucianism had to give way altogether. In short, the value scheme in the clan rules resulted from a complicated process of two-way adjustment between doctrine and practical experi­ ence. In the following pages, we shall consider four aspects of this com­ plicated process. The first is the ideological make-up of the clan rules. The Confucian teachings are by no means the only component in the rules. Actually the ancient classics of Confucianism, though basic, are less in evidence than the later Confucianist teachings, especially those of the Neo-Confucianists from the Sung to the early Ch mg period, with their admixture of Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religion. The second aspect is the influence of the state. The law of the state, which incorporated some Confucian principles, is the legal basis of the clan rules. Many of the imperial injunctions on moral conduct, by which the state transmitted and applied such Confucian teachings as it deemed especially important, were embodied in clan rules. At the same time a suspicious attitude toward the state, the fruit of the people’s practical experience in their relationship with the government, also found ex­ pression in the clan rules. The third aspect is the influence of scholar-officials. Men of this class generally gave their clan organizations strong support and moral leadership, and usually were among the actual compilers of the clan rules. These scholar-officials combined the scholar’s idealistic interests with the realistic interests of members of the ruling class. On the one hand, they were devoted to Confucian teachings; on the other, they had their responsibilities as family heads and community leaders. On the one hand, they knew that the clan rules could be made effective only by a strong clan organization, requiring the active participation of many more scholar-officials and members of their families; on the other, they realized painfully that the conduct of many upper-class members left much to be desired. On the one hand, they were loyal to the state; on the other hand, they were responsible to the clan and inclined to avoid government interference. These mixed motives are evident in the clan rules. The fourth and last essential aspect in the value scheme of the clan rules is their response to prevailing social customs. The clan rules deal with what is as well as with what should be; and they necessarily pass judgment on at least some of the social customs with which they are concerned. This judgment is not a simple matter of approval or disap­ proval; it may be a persistent resistance, a permissive tolerance, an ambivalent acceptance, or a tacit approval. It must also be emphasized

Chinese Clan Rules

21

that the rules were directed above all to the clan’s less educated and uneducated members. One clan rule, for example, states that it re­ nounces the difficult classical language used in the famous rules of the past in favor of the simple, plain language that most people can under­ stand.14 Furthermore, the clan rules necessarily drew upon the land of practical experience that was largely shared by the scholar-officials and the common people alike, so that in this sense, too, they may be said to have responded to the customs of the common people. CONFUCIAN TEACHINGS IN THE CLAN RULES

Among the numerous ancient classics cited by the clan rules, the most im portant one is the Li-chi (“Book of Rituals”), especially the section entitled “Nei-tse” (“Domestic Rules”). Next in importance are the other classics on li, notably the 1-li, the Chou-li, and the Erh-ya. Other passages come from the Hsiao-ching (“Classic of Filial Piety”) and die Analects of Confucius. It is evident that the clan rules place their strongest emphasis upon li. In the words of the “Nei-tse,” quoted by some clan rules, “li serves to determine the closeness or distance of relations, to setde w hat is the proper conduct in doubtful circumstances, to distinguish kin from non-kin, and to clarify what is right and wrong.”15 The term li, sometimes translated as “propriety,” refers not merely to rituals, ceremonies, and manners, but more important than that, to proper conduct and its ethical basis. It signifies both die con­ ventions and the principles which regulate all group life, and particu­ larly the life of kinship groups. Take the ancestral hall and the activi­ ties there, for example; one clan rule explains, “The ancestral hall is established, first for the remembrance of the ancestors; second, for the purpose of uniting the sentiment of clan members; and third, for the sake of teaching those to come the virtues of filial piety and sincerity.”15 W hen the clan rules cite other classics such as the Book of Changes, the Book of Poetry, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, they are con­ cerned mainly with bringing metaphysical interpretations, aesthetic sanction, and historical precedents to the support of the approved con­ ventions and principles called li. The clan rules quote several other pre-Han works, among them the Hsiin-tzu and the Kuan-tzu. The Confucianist philosopher Hsiin-tzu stressed the restraining aspects of li and pointed to the need for puni­ tive regulations. His work paved the way for the clan rules to cite the Kuan-tzu on the desirability of supporting li with institutional and legal controls. Many Han writings are also quoted, especially the following: Chia I, Hsin-shu; Liu Hsi, Shih-ming; Pan Ku, Po-hu-tung; Wang C hung, Liin-heng; Yang Hsiung, Fa-yen; and Ying Shao, Feng-su

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Tung-i. These books have two characteristics in common: (1) they develop the Confucian doctrines on li to include an emphasis upon ming-chieh (integrity); and (2) they advance the concept of hang-chi (governing principles and discipline) as being necessary for all or­ ganized groups. In short, in Han Confucian teachings, the basic em­ phasis on li took two forms: voluntary control by self-respect and dis­ ciplinary restraint by institutions. Besides the above, the clan rules often quote some writings of the period between Han and T ang which deal with the family. Among these are Pan Chaos Nii Chieh (“Instructions for Women”), a classic on the proper conduct of ladies, and Yen Chih-tui’s Yen-shih Chiahsiin (“Family Instructions”) probably the earliest systematically com­ piled work of the kind. While Yen s book in the main follows Confu­ cianism, it also provides in detail more practical ways of behaving and treating people. Liu P’ien s work, also on family instructions, reflects the aristocratic mode of living during the T ang period. The Sung Neo-Confucianists in reviving Confucianism developed it to a new height. They amplified the significance of self-respect and stressed self-cultivation in accordance with the metaphysical concepts of li (principles) and hsing (nature). They implemented the principle of disciplinary restraint by strengthening institutional control, particu­ larly in the family and by extension in the clan, to a greater degree than before. As we have seen, it is the Neo-Confucianist teachings that occupy the foremost place in the clan rules. Many clan rules quote with reverence the Chia-li (“Family Rituals”) by Chu Hsi and Chia-i (“Family Manners”) by Ssu-ma Kuang. Fan Chung-yen is highly praised for originating the system of the chari­ table estate, which provides regular relief and aid to poor clan members; and the “Rules of the Charitable Estate of the Fan Clan” is cited in many of the clan rules. Almost equal in fame was the “Chih Chia Ke-yen” (“Motto on Family Discipline”) composed by Chu Yung-chun (better known by his courtesy name, Po-lu), an early Ch’ing scholar who re­ mained loyal to the Ming and adhered consistently to Chu Hsi. ( A num­ ber of clan rules mistakenly attribute the “Chih Chia Ke-yen” to Chu Hsi himself. ) Some clan rules include all or part of the hsiang-yüeh (community pact), a system devised during the Northern Sung period by Lii Ta-lin and his brothers, who formulated it in four principles: mutual en­ couragement of virtue, mutual rectification of faults, mutual friendship through observing proper etiquette, and mutual aid in case of trouble. It was widely adopted during the Southern Sung period. Especially popular was Chu-tzu Tseng-sun Lü-shih Hsiang-yüeh (“A Revision of

Chinese Clan Rules

23

the Lü Community Pact by Chu Hsi”). In the Ming period, Wang Yang-ming officially issued his remodeled community pact known as “Nan Kan Hsiang-yüeh” and put it into effect in southern Kiangsi in combination with a system of community surveillance of crime. From then on, the community pact system was followed in many areas.17 A fairly large number of clan rules include elaborate collections of quotations from famous scholars and scholar-officials, mainly from the Sung period to the early Ch mg. Of the sixty frequently cited, more than forty are named in the Ssu CKao Hsüéh-an, a kind of cyclopedia listing the various Confucian schools of learning and their notable scholars dining the Sung, Yiian, Ming, and Ch’ing dynasties.18 The quotations generally follow the Sung emphasis on li, self-respect, selfcultivation, and disciplinary restraint both self-imposed and institu­ tional. These were the param ount Confucian (or rather, Neo-Confucian) values during the Ch’ing period when these clan rules were com­ piled. This brief survey has shown the selective accumulation of the Confucianist teachings in the clan rules. One clan rule that illustrates this selective accumulation very nicely requires the clan in its meetings to hear lectures on the following: (1) the community pact; (2) imperial injunctions on moral conduct; (3) factual instances of filial piety, other merits, and demerits; (4 ) Chu Hsi’s Chia-li (“Family Rituals”); (5) other writings on family discipline and self-cultivation by famous auth­ ors; and (6) the clan rule itself. After the lecture, the clan meeting should proceed to reward meritorious conduct and punish offenses among the members.19 This example, which is one among many, demon­ strates that the classics and the early writings, though upheld as the basic sources of the clan rules, are not as useful as the Neo-Confucianist teachings which deal specifically and directly with the family, the dan, and proper behavior beyond the kinship group. The Confucian teachings in the clan rules became more or less con­ ventionally fixed during the course of the eighteenth century. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention the encyclopedia, Ku Chin T*u-shu Chi-cKeng, completed in 1725, which covers numerous kinship and social relations in its various sections, notably in its section on family norms ( “Chia-fan-tien” ). We find that the clan rules deal with a number of topics covered by this section of the encyclopedia: parents, father and son, mother and son, discipline of children, sons of the wife and sons of concubines, adoption, adopted heirs, womanhood, grandchil­ dren, brotherhood, man and wife, clan relations, and domestic servants. In other topics, however, the clan rules fail to take much interest: among these are grandfather and grandson, wet nurse, sisterhood.

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sister-in-law and brother, uncle and nephew, aunt and nephew. Sig­ nificantly, the clan rules are almost unanimously silent on the relation­ ship between mother and daughter-in-law, which has a special heading in this section of the encyclopedia, and in general they express far less interest than the encyclopedia in relationships between various ma­ ternal relatives.20 This comparison definitely underscores the family-centered, patri­ archal nature and the hierarchical emphasis of the clan rules. How­ ever, there is another point of comparison which is even more impor­ tant. The encyclopedia quotes the ancient classics and writings on Confucian theory extensively; but the clan rules prefer to quote from more recent writings of a more practical kind. The availablity of the encyclo­ pedia probably enriched the contents of the clan rules; but the Confucian materials selected from it were primarily those that seemed most relevant to family and clan activities in daily life. There is further evidence that clan rules took their ultimate form in tiie course of the eighteenth century. Ch’en Hung-mou, a leading scholar-official active in the government during the early years of the Ch’ien-lung reign (1736-96), edited several compilations of Confucian writings of a utilitarian nature. His compilations, collectively known as the W u Chung I-kuei (“The Five Collections of Rules”), consist of tiie Yang Cheng I-kuei (“Rules on Proper Upbringing”), the Hsün Su I-kuei (“Rules on Social Customs”), the Chiao Nü I-kuei (“Rules on Teaching Girls”), and two other sets of rules on the conduct of govern­ ment officials.21 One clan rule says that the W u Chung I-kuei should be kept handy for constant reference.22 The reason is not hard to find. Both this compilation and many clan rules share the same purpose, namely, to transmit and apply the Confucian teachings in practical mat­ ters. The appearance of this compilation probably contributed to the growth of the clan rules into generally accepted and even fixed models. As might be expected, the Neo-Confucianist teachings found in the clan rules contain some minor admixtures of Buddhism and Taoism. One clan rule goes to the extreme of quoting many Buddhist and Taoist sayings and equating them with comparable Confucian teachings.2* Several others admit the value of borrowing some good teachings from Buddhism. One says: Han-shan said to his fellow Buddhist Shih-te: “People slander me, trespass against me, envy me, laugh at me, cause me harm, cheat me, and humiliate me. What should I do?” Shih-te replied, “I would just yield to them, tolerate them, suffer from them, be patient with them, avoid them, let them do what they wish, pay no attention to them, and wait to see what will happen to them several years later.” Though this is a Buddhist saying, there is useful knowl­ edge in it and it can be used as a principle in dealing with people.24

Chinese Clan Rules

25

Other clan rules accept some Buddhist concepts but give them a Confucian interpretation. One of these rules reads as follows: The Buddhists say that if you want to know about previous lives, look at the sufferings of this life. If you want to know about the next life, look at what is being done in this life. This is an excellent statement. However, what Buddhists refer to as previous lives and the lives to come stems from their theory of rebirth and transmigration of souls. I think what has happened before yesterday—the father, and the ancestors—are really the previous lives, and that what will happen after today—the sons and the grandsons—are really the lives to come. A friend spoke to me of rebirth and emancipation. I answered that a family which has accumulated goodness will have lasting fortunes, while a family which has accumulated demerits will have misfortunes in the future. Is this not what we Confucianists believe in and an equivalent to the Bud­ dhist theory of rebirth? A gentleman neither worries nor fears. He lives at peace and leaves the rest to destiny. Is this not what we Confucianists be­ lieve to be emancipation?25

A few clan rules advise their members to read Tai-shang Kan-ying F ien and follow Kung Kuo Ke; both are known to be colored by Tao­ ism. However, these admixtures of Buddhism, and to a lesser extent of Taoism, caused no significant change in the value scheme of the clan rules. As will be shown later, the clan rules are generally opposed to the prevailing practices of organized religions. Adhering to the Confucian teachings in the main, they accept or reject certain religious influences largely on grounds of whether such influences strengthen or weaken the Confucian values they uphold. STATE INFLUENCE IN THE CLAN RULES

The traditional Chinese state was interested in maintaining order through both the law and moral education. It relied to a certain extent upon the clan rules, which incorporate excerpts from the penal code in their texts, to transm it the law to clan members, as well as to uphold law-abiding conduct in general. Above all, however, the clan rules served as an instrum ent for passing along die sheng-yii, imperial in­ junctions on moral conduct. The sheng-yii are often termed “imperial instructions” or “educational edicts” on the grounds that they lie in the area of moral education; it seems more accurate to describe them as injunctions, for they were proclaimed by the Emperor and had the force of law. These im perial injunctions had a complicated background. Mixing the Neo-Confucianist emphasis upon moral education and the state in­ terest in controlling the social order, the Ming government instituted the U-chia neighborhood unit system to impose collective responsibility.

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the appointment of lao-jen (elders) to supervise village communities, and community meetings at the shen-ming fin g (pavilion of moral education) and ching-shan fin g (pavilion in honor of moral conduct) to encourage good conduct. Essential in all these institutions were the Six Injunctions proclaimed by the Emperor T*ai-tsu, the founder of die dynasty. This elaborate system of local control was disrupted around 1430 but revived briefly under the Wan-li reign (1573-1619).26 While in the beginning the Ch’ing government did not institute a system of local control as elaborate as that of the Ming, it did authorize the revival of the Six Injunctions in 1652, not long after its conquest of China proper. The Six Injunctions, together with commentaries on them, also spread to the Liu-ch iu Islands and from there to Tokugawa Japan, where they were honored with many editions.27 However, the Ch’ing government did not find the Ming document entirely satisfac­ tory. The K’ang-hsi Emperor proclaimed his own Sixteen Injunctions in 1670 and his son, the Yung-cheng Emperor, issued in 1724 the 10,000word Sheng-yü Kuang Hsiin as the official commentary on the Sixteen Injunctions. From time to time, enthusiastic local government officials circulated their own editions of these texts. Other interested officials compiled and printed additional explanations (some of them in the colloquial language), illustrations,28 and historical examples. The Ch’ing government required local magistrates to give lectures on the imperial injunctions, but most magistrates did so only occasion­ ally and in a very perfunctory manner.20 The clan rules seem to have provided a much more effective channel of communicating the im­ perial injunctions to the clan groups. The Six Injunctions read as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Render filial piety to your parents. Respect your seniors by generation and age. Remain in harmony with clan and community members. Teach and discipline your sons and grandsons. Attend to your proper vocation. Do not do what the law forbids.

It may be seen that the Six Injunctions emphasize family responsibili­ ties more than clan activities; family security more than clan welfare; conformity to conventions more than self-cultivation; and obedience to law more than other Confucian virtues. The Sixteen Injunctions read as follows: 1. Be steadfast in filial piety and brotherhood. 2. Be close to fellow clan members.

Chinese Clan Rules 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

27

Be kind to community people. Take care of farming productivity. Be industrious and thrifty. Support schools. Abjure heretical religions. Learn the law and statutes. Follow the rituals in showing deference to others. Attend to your proper vocation. Instruct sons and younger ones. Forbid false accusation. Do not harbor outlaws. Pay taxes. Organize pao-chia neighborhood units to maintain local order. Resolve enmities.

The Sixteen Injunctions are more comprehensive and more specific than the Six Injunctions. There are several close parallels between the Six­ teen Injunctions and the clan rules. First, both follow the same se­ quence of arrangem ent in putting the general principles of desirable behavior at the beginning and the specific provisions on concrete mat­ ters—either desirable or, in most cases, undesirable conduct—toward the end. Second, while both the Sixteen Injunctions and many clan rules deal with intra-clan and community relations, their strongest em­ phasis is upon family order and family security. Third, those of the Sixteen Injunctions (7, 8,12,13,14,15) that stress obedience to the law and other required obligations to the state are reflected faithfully in many clan rules, sometimes in the identical wording. Government efforts in moral education were by no means limited to the imperial injunctions. The K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, and Ch’ienlung Emperors each issued a number of supplementary edicts giving fur­ ther specifications and direct applications of the injunctions to particu­ lar cases. These edicts were largely of two kinds. The first kind cen­ sured certain influential, wealthy, and aggressive elements for engaging in various undesirable practices. Some edicts denounced those gentry who imposed their will upon the community;30 others decried indul­ gence in luxury, especially in the m atter of expensive funerals and wed­ dings.31 Clan organizations also had their faults; well-organized clans, as several edicts pointed out, were apt to start litigation against other people and even to engage in feuds with other clans.32 The second category of edicts appealed to im portant elements in the community and the clan groups to assume leadership in upholding Confucian prin­ ciples against undesirable religious influences. One edict after another called upon local leaders to combat belief in geomancy and witchcraft.33

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Several edicts deplored the joining of religious orders, the holding of religious services in mixed company, and the practice of permitting women to visit temples.84 The government took a particularly serious view of large pilgrimages across provincial boundaries, which might endanger state security.85 Though the clan rules rarely cite these edicts specifically, they reflect an acceptance of the government’s wishes by expressing the same views. These edicts raise the question: W hat was die Ch mg government’s attitude toward organized clans on the whole? The government real­ ized that it could not depend upon local government officials alone to propagate the imperial injunctions or to enforce moral education in general.88 The suggestion that the pao-chia neighborhood units as­ sume this responsibility did not seem feasible.87 The alternative was to call upon the clan groups, especially the scholar-official leaders among them. A memorial in 1736 pointed out significandy that the improvement of social customs and the spread of moral education must begin with the officials and their families. Unfortunately, it went on, many officials and their families were so selfish that they did not look after their clan members. Though the government sometimes commended a few of­ ficials who had donated land to their clans for the relief of clan mem­ bers, this was hardly enough. This memorial suggested that a clan with more than 1,000 members should have a clan head with power to instruct and guide the members; that a clan with a record of several years without litigation should receive government commendation; and that individuals who made outstanding contributions to their clan, especially in relief during famine years, should be similarly rewarded and even given official titles. On the other hand, the government should punish both officials and scholars who mistreated their clan mem­ bers. Only through such measures would it be possible to have the clan groups promote moral behavior.88 Though the government did wish to have the clan groups move in the direction suggested by this memorial, it did not want to regulate clan activities in such a formal manner. Furthermore, there was an­ other consideration: from the viewpoint of the state, it might not be entirely desirable to have really strong clan organizations. Some clans in Kiangsi and Kwangtung provinces had already built up in the mid­ eighteenth century unusually large memberships by including groups of the same surname who were not necessarily related by blood. Such clan organizations had not only extensive common properties but also great social influence. Looking upon such clans with political suspicion, die government compelled them to limit their membership to nearby kin and to limit their property holdings.39 In fact, when a memorial

Chinese Clan Rules

29

presented in 1768 again suggested the system of assigning official pow­ ers to the heads of large clan groups, the Ch’ien-lung Emperor rejected it with a reprimand, pointing out that large clans often caused trouble by fighting with other clans or by dominating the community, and that to give clan heads official power would be tantam ount to a revival of feudalism.40 In short, the Ch’ing government wanted the clans to pro­ mote moral education within their existing structure but did not want diem to become too influential. This limitation was also tacidy ac­ cepted by the clan rules. So far, our discussion has separated die state from the scholar-offi­ cials. In reality, these two elements were closely related. The wishes of the state, as expressed by the imperial injunctions and the numerous edicts on moral education, were often the result of advice given by a few scholar-officials who were particularly interested in these matters. As we have seen, however, these scholar-officials served two masters. On the one hand, as officials working for the government, they saw the desirability of having clan organizations promote moral education and take care of their members without troubling die government On die other hand, as clan leaders and thinking in terms of the clan’s security, they wished to avoid involvement with the government, whether in the form of litigation, or in the form of government supervision of clan activities. For this reason, die compilers of clan rules gladly went along with the government in keeping the clan organization as it was. The attitude of avoiding the government is clearly seen in three injunctions which the clan rules generally give to their members. These three injunctions stem not so much from the imperial injunctions or from Confucian teachings as from the practical experience of the peo­ ple in general. In other words, they reflect the effects of government operations upon the people. The first injunction is not to discuss po­ litical m atters. An early Ch mg genealogy contains a Ming clan rule which warns that political gossip is unbecoming to a cultivated man, that criticism of local government officials is neither loyal nor kind, and that ignoring this advice may bring disaster.41 Though such specific formulations are not numerous, practically all clan rules refrain from mentioning politics. The second injunction is to pay taxes promptly, primarily in order to keep clear of the government. Prompt payment of taxes is both nec­ essary and desirable—necessary because paying taxes is the duty of subjects who should be loyal to the government and grateful for its protection, desirable (and here the language of the rule is far more em phatic) because of the hardship which comes with the collection of tax arrears.42

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The third injunction is to avoid litigation. The Confucian precept that clan groups should settle disputes among themselves is naturally a point, but by no means the only point here. Many clan rules base their advice on experience rather than on theory. They point out that the clerks in the local government are like “tigers and wolves,” that many magistrates are unreliable and unpredictable and some of them are corrupt and cruel, and that litigation is invariably time-consuming and, as a result, financially ruinous. It is for these practical reasons that one should avoid litigation as much as possible and use clan arbitra­ tion to settle disputes.48 Confucian theory assumed that one who cultivated himself and disciplined his family should be able to influence society at large and contribute his share of leadership to government administration. While this assumption applied to a significant extent to the scholar-officials in government service, it was by no means applicable to the common people or private citizens, as can be seen from the clans’ eagerness to avoid government interference. Despite the Confucian theory, the state definitely exerted a negative influence upon the clan rules; that is, the rules reflect a distinct conflict of interest between the clan and the state. As might be expected, the clan rules do not admit this dis­ crepancy. At most, they try to justify a certain degree of dissociation from the government by stretching the meanings of such virtues as loyalty and honesty and by emphasizing the desirability of law-abiding conduct according to the imperial injunctions, regardless of how the law and the government happen to be operating. In any case, what the clan rules value are principally order and security for the family and for the clan. SCHOLAR-OFFICIAL INTERESTS IN THE CLAN RULES

Idealistic Interests The idealism of the scholar-officials in the clan organizations should not be underestimated. In the first place, they assumed the responsi­ bility of moral leadership. Through the clan organizations they sup­ ported, the clan rules they compiled, and other clan activities in which they played a prominent part, they helped to instill Confucian values in the people under their influence.44 Their function has been stated in many ways in the clan rules. One such statement is often cited: Once a scholar has earned his degree. Heaven places the destiny of the com­ mon people in his hands. If Heaven does not want to save the people, why should Heaven bring up scholar-officials? If scholar-officials do not save the people, what is the use of their being officials?45

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A true Confucian scholar-official has im portant roles, even when he does not happen to be in office. Another common quotation explains what the scholar-officials’ interests should be and should not be: The local gentry [hsiang-shen, principally former officials and close relatives of officials] is the hope of the country. By living at home and promoting good, a gentleman can move and influence the district and the neighborhood. He can also help train the coming generation. His substantial and moral con­ tributions are a hundred times greater than those of a mere scholar. The best thing for a gentleman to do is to uphold the worthy, to make known what is good, and to exercise his leadership in improving social customs. Short of this ideal, he should at least keep himself upright, discipline those close to him, and maintain his integrity in peace and quiet. There is less to be said for those who look around for land and houses to buy. Even worse are those who trample upon weak and helpless people.46

Some scholar-officials went beyond this requirement of moral lead­ ership and made concrete contributions to their clan organizations. They selected responsible clan officers, built ancestral halls and ac­ quired ritual lands to support them, compiled genealogies and clan rules, promoted cordial relations within the clan and the community, established charitable granaries for relief purposes, set up charitable schools to educate the poor youths of the clan, rewarded members for exemplary conduct, and restrained those who had misbehaved—all with the aim of creating a morally uplifting and practically gratifying way of life.47 One clan rule records a donation of charitable land in the following words: My father, Hsiin-ch’in, had always admired the way Fan Chung-yen helped the clan [with charitable estates]. During his twenty years of government service, he saved money from his salary, after providing for his parents, and used the money to help poor clan members. After his retirement, he studied the rituals at home, contributed ritual lands, provided graveyards for those without descendants, aided orphans, and helped widows. He did not finish these tasks before he died. On his deathbed, he expressed regret that no charitable estate had yet been established and no charitable school had yet been set up for the clan. This was more than thirty years ago. I am now about fifty years of age, old, sick, and unable to do much. Deeply sorrowful that the wishes of my late father have not been realized, I now donate five mou of the land he left me to the clan as charitable land.48

Such efforts from father to son and even through several generations sometimes led to the building up of large charitable estates, as another clan rule shows: Hsiin Shu of the Han period and Ying Chan of the Chin period, in dividing their properties to provide for their clan members, earned unanimous praise. The term “charitable estate,” however, originated much later with Fan

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Chung-yen of the Sung period. . . . We, the Chao clan, moved from Chiangyin to Ch'ang-shu in the time of our ancestor Sung-yiin. We have remained together for ten generations and behaved toward each other with loyalty and kindness. Now, clan members have multiplied, and many are in need. My late father, Wen-piao, donated more than 400 mou of land to the clan, but this has been sufficient only for the purpose of helping to pay for weddings and funerals. A charitable estate in order to be registered with the govern­ ment as such must have 1,000 mou. I tried to save money for thirty years but could not reach the objective. Unfortunately, my eldest son had studied hard and died early, leaving no one to assist me in this task. Nevertheless, this wish has never left my mind for a single day. I now put down the tenta­ tive regulations of our charitable estate in the hope that coming generations will join in this common effort.49

For clans that did not have charitable estates, the donation of ritual land served many useful purposes. Sometimes the donation was made by a single scholar-official, as in the following case: Thanks to the benefits bestowed by our ancestors, I was fortunate enough to get government degrees. I felt that I should not keep my salary from many years of government service to myself. Originally, in proposing the building of the ancestral hall, the buying of ritual land, and aid for the aged and die orphans in the dan, I intended to contribute some 3,000 taels of silver. I did not anticipate that a severe famine, together with deficits in the treas­ ury, would lead to my contributing more than 5,000 taels for relief in the area in which I served as an official. Consequently, my properties were sold, my family was reduced to poverty, and my intention to help the dan was no longer matched by my ability to do so. In spite of the difficulty, I have de­ rided to give up the 250 mou of land on which the living of my family nor­ mally depends. This property is worth approximately 1,000 taels. I have turned in the registration of the land and the names of the tenants, so that the land shall be recorded [as clan property] for the use of the ancestral hall in accordance with common decision of the clan members. The use of the rental income shall of course depend upon the amount of the two harvests each year. However, it shall be generally as follows: one-third to defray the expenses of the spring and autumn rituals; one-third as savings to earn inter­ est in order to build the ancestral hall; and the remaining one-third for the relief of the poor and the aged, for helping pay for weddings and funerals, and for clan rewards. All these outlays shall be made twice a year. It is hoped that the whole clan will understand my humble wishes, give more at­ tention to education, and distinguish themselves in filial piety and brotherly love.50

It was not easy for many clans to own common property in land. Even building and maintaining an ancestral hall took great efforts. One clan rule testifies to this fact: We, the Shen clan, had an ancestral hall which was donated by our ancestors I-chai and Fu-chai. I-chai, after his first government degree, became secre­ tary in the Secretariat-Chancellery. After many years of service, he was a

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circuit intendant of defense in Shantung province. Fu-chai, after the same degree, took the examination at the Directorate of Education and became a government school administrator. When they came home, they planned for the ancestral hall. Without much savings from their salaries, they could do no more than buy a house outside the West Gate, which was then used as our ancestral hall. Owing to subsequent difficulties, only its main hall could be reserved for the tablets of our ancestors; the other rooms were leased or rented to meet the annual expenses of the rituals. Later on, during the reign of Tao-kuang, as no one managed it, the tenants simply took it over. After repeated negotiations by Chiu-fu, the former clan head, the clan’s property rights were restored but not without costing a great deal of money. This ex­ pense was met by the former clan head and my late father, who each con­ tributed 100,000 coins, and by small contributions from other members. It was by no means easy. From then on, the ancestral hall was registered with the local government. In 1851, the tablet of our foremost ancestor was placed in it, and the spring and autumn rituals were performed. The ancestral hall was finally in good order. Yet it was soon destroyed during the Taiping Re­ bellion. Now, after the government has recaptured the area, our clan mem­ bers have to plan for its restoration.51

The pattern of group life promoted and the values advocated by the scholar-officials had a pervading effect among the general populace and made many features of the clan organization lasting. This has been confirmed by contemporary field surveys. Even in such areas as Man­ churia, where, owing to relatively recent settlement, formal clan or­ ganization was generally lacking, a meeting of clan members some­ times adopted certain regulations in the absence of a written clan rule. W here there was no clan head, influential leaders were called upon to m ediate in disputes between fellow members and to promote clan welfare.52 In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the idealism of even the most idealistic scholar-officials was not morally doctrinaire; it took into consideration many realistic aspects of life. An essential task in the compilation of clan rules is to narrow the gap between theories and reality by adjusting the theories within permissible limits and applying them as far as may be practicable. The clan rules, collectively speaking, represent efforts to specify the Confucian virtues in the light of actual conditions. Realistic Interests Compiled as they were by scholar-officials, the clan rules naturally devote more space to the interests of upper-class families than to the interests of ordinary members. Most rules, for example, include sec­ tions on training in proper manners, the importance of dignity, strict segregation of the sexes, and how to deal with domestic servants. Above the rules are concerned with the achievement and perpetuation of

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scholar-official status. Many quote Chu Hsi to the effect that a family’s first duty is to educate its members for official careers, with a view to raising the family’s social position.53 Though the vocation of scholar is unanimously upheld as the best, a few clan rules express some reserva­ tions about it. They point out that not all scholars succeed in getting higher degrees and becoming government officials. In fact, many schol­ ars after having earned their first degree find it necessary to earn a living by teaching, a vocation which is not only financially unsatisfac­ tory but sometimes demeaning.54 Other frustrated scholars who turn to such irregular activities as contacting and negotiating with govern­ ment offices on behalf of other people are in effect tampering with jus­ tice and should be prohibited from doing so.55 Nevertheless, the ma­ jority of clan rules insist that a scholar, though frustrated, has many advantages. He is addressed as "sir,” he has the privilege of calling on gentry families, he may have the opportunity of becoming a private staff member under an official, and he can apply his knowledge to such vocations or pursuits as bookkeeping, letter-writing, fortune-telling, astronomy, geomancy, medicine, and the arts. Moreover, scholarship has intrinsic moral value in self-cultivation.54 The scholar-official status, comprising both power and wealth, is as important to the clan as it is to the family. Many clan rules urge the use of the clan’s common fund for the promotion of education. The rules of wealthy clans provide for assistance to promising young mem­ bers who are financially in need of help, either through a charitable school or otherwise. Individual rules set aside funds for essay contests, permit students to use rooms in the ancestral hall as studies, provide assistance to candidates in the government examinations, and specify rewards for the successful candidates.” One clan rule is especially re­ markable. It stipulates that any poor scholar in the clan who keeps on studying, whether he is working as a tutor or not, shall receive an an­ nual stipend of 16,000 coins if he is preparing to take an examination, and half this amount if he is not.58 This stipulation is noteworthy for both its encouragement of hopeful scholars and its comfort to frustrated ones. The active promotion of education in the clan group is variously motivated. The altruism of Confucian scholars is one motive, but not a strong one. The immediate motivation is the prestige of the clan, which will be greatly enhanced by an increase in the number of its scholars, and especially its scholar-officials.59 There is also a long-range motivation: the wish to have more educated members to take the lead in clan activities, to spread Confucian moral education, and to strengthen the clan organization.

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This long-range motivation can be best understood in the context of ancestral rites, the most im portant clan activity in terms of holding the group together. According to the clan rules, only a small number of select members are entitled on ritual occasions to such privileges as toasting with sacrificial wine and attending the commensal banquet afterwards. These select members are those who have made some con­ tribution to either the clan s welfare or its prestige. They include the clan officers, members whose conduct has been highly exemplary, and venerable elders, but they consist mainly of scholar-officials and those who have donated money and land to the clan. The special honor ac­ corded them at the ancestral rites serves more purposes than one—to induce them to engage in additional clan activities, to show apprecia­ tion of their contributions so far, to encourage them to give more, and to inspire other members to become scholar-officials and active leaders in clan functions.60 If there had been no clan organization, the transmission and appli­ cation of Confucian theories would perhaps have been limited to the individual families of scholar-officials. On the other hand, to keep the clan organization going, the active interest and financial support of scholar-official members were indispensable. Ideally a clan had certain properties in addition to its essential properties. The essential proper­ ties were those dedicated to the ancestral cult such as the ancestral hall, the ancestral graveyard, and ritual land to provide the expenses required by the rites. The additional properties were those devoted to welfare functions such as charitable land, school land, educational land, and charitable granaries for emergency relief. The main source of all these common properties was the generous endowment of a few scholarofficial members, while the rest came from surplus income of previously donated land under good management and miscellaneous donations from the membership at large.61 A number of clan rules stipulate various measures for raising support from scholar-official members—for example, a voluntary or required contribution upon receiving a civil service appointment, earning a degree, acquiring land, or inheriting an estate.62 Such measures were especially helpful in rehabilitating clans that had suffered from disrup­ tions, notably those caused by the Taiping Rebellion.63 Yet the formal existence of these regulations did not necessarily secure the support (bey aimed at. Of the 151 clans that were well enough organized to have genealogies printed from 1912 to 1936, only about one-third had some kind of common land, and few of these had more than 100 mo«.04 Only twelve clans had large charitable estates. One clan rule laments the fact that in a very wealthy area such as Soochow only a dozen or

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so clans had charitable estates larger than 1,000 mou.9* As we have seen, the most generous endowment of common land often came from an individual family, with the father’s example inspiring the son to follow suit.69 This indicates that the appeals the clan rules made to their scholar-official members were not always answered. During the Yung-cheng period, the C hing government tried to en­ courage scholar-officials to donate their property to their clans for the benefit of poor clan members in return for public commendation and merit rating in the civil service. However, this encouragement did not produce the desired results. As a memorial of 1736 pointed out, It has always been true that die improvement of social customs depends upon the initiative of leading families and large clans and that the implementation of moral education should begin with the officials. Among the scholar-offi­ cials in recent times, some have done well for their clans and communities. However, many have been selfish. Some of these selfish scholar-officials pro­ vide their own families with many comforts but leave their brothers and cousins in poverty and in need. Some of them have many servants, expensive carriages, and horses, while they pay no attention to their clan members who have neither enough clothing nor sufficient food. . . . When scholar-official families so comport themselves, how can die common people be blamed for trespassing against and disputing with one another?67

The records of a few charitable estates show notable success in overcoming many difficulties of management and in maintaining the system of relief over a long period of time.*8 These few, however, are outstanding exceptions. Much more often the failure of scholar-officials to respond adequately to the welfare needs of their clan left the clan organization with no alternative but to limit die scope of its activities, to the disadvantage of poor members. For example, numerous clan rules fail to mention any concrete measure to assist poor widows except a vague appeal to their close kin for voluntary help as a moral obliga­ tion. A number of clan rules require a fee for participation in ancestral rites. Some clan rules even insist on a donation before permitting me­ morial tablets of deceased members to be placed in the ancestral hall.68 Under these circumstances, poor members could not help losing interest in the clan organization. To borrow the words of the anthropologist Redfield, there was a class barrier "preventing the cultural influence of the ceremonial centers from filtering down to the rural masses.”70 The transmission and application of the Confucian heritage became limited largely to the privileged and relatively well-to-do. Even more detrimental to clan cohesion than the scholar-officials’ inadequate support were the deviations in the conduct of their family members.71 The clan rules reflect a painful awareness of certain com­ mon deviations; there are numerous prohibitions, for example, against

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concubinage not for the justifiable purpose of begetting an heir, against indulgence in luxuries, and against conspicuous consumption in funer­ als and w eddings.'2 The clan rules condemn the young members of wealthy families for not being industrious and thrifty, for wasteful hobbies, and for forming gangs with bad company.73 Gambling, drink­ ing, and visiting prostitutes are regarded as ruinous.74 Opium smoking is banned in the relatively recent clan rules.75 The use of power and prestige to take advantage of fellow clan members is another kind of misconduct generally forbidden.76 The very fact that these deviations are so often mentioned is prob­ ably an indication of their frequency. The corrupting influence of a comfortable life seems to be stronger than the influence of the Confucian teachings and mores. Against socially undesirable tendencies, the moral appeals of the clan rules fought a losing battle. One clan rule goes so far as to observe that a family would do well to reside forty li away from the city, so that its members could not often go to the market place and expose themselves to corrupting influences.77 This suggests the existence of a conflict between the Confucian value scheme and the city mode of living; the Confucian value scheme seems to be primarily the projection of primary group life in rural communities, while the city mode of living, at least from the Confucianist viewpoint, usually leads people astray. Basically the clan rules, in transm itting and applying Confucian theories, suffered from an insoluble dilemma: the necessity of depend­ ing on scholar-official leadership, and the fact that this leadership was exercised by only a very few idealistic scholar-officials while their many colleagues contented themselves with a less demanding interpretation of proper Confucian conduct. The Interpretation of Confucian Values The scholar-officials had an active interest in interpreting Confucian values for the benefit of clan members. Their interpretations as seen in the clan rules tend to combine theoretical teachings and practical experience, ideals and realities. By way of illustration we shall consider the five leading areas of interpretation: parent-children relationships, relationships between brothers, marriage relationships, clan relation­ ships, and finally community relationships and friendship. In parent-children relationships, a number of clan rules extol the value of filial piety on lofty philosophical grounds. For example, one rule says: “Filial piety is a m atter of intuitive knowledge and ability, and in fact, exists in man’s nature itself. Failure to render filial piety to parents is a crime against Heaven.”78 However, the leading justifica-

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tion for filial piety in the majority of clan rules is reasonable, humane, and practical. It holds that since the parents have done so much in rearing their children, it is only fair for children to express their grati­ tude in return by respecting, pleasing, and taking care of their parents.79 What, then, constitutes filial piety in behavioral terms? The clan rules do not approve of going to such extremes as the famous historical example of cutting out a piece of one’s own flesh as medicine to cure the illness of a parent.80 They confine themselves generally to an ideal on the one hand and a minimum requirement on the other. The ideal is to give the parents, in addition to their daily sustenance, a psychological satisfaction by understanding, anticipating, and meeting their wishes. Even when the parents happen to be senile, harsh, mistaken, or hard to please, a good son defers to them without showing displeasure, mean­ while trying tactfully to dissuade them from making serious mistakes or at least to shield them from their mistakes. The minimum require­ ment is to show due respect and to provide for the parents. Failure to exert efforts toward the ideal is not regarded as an offense, but failure to meet the minimum requirement is condemned as filial impiety.81 According to field surveys, this minimum requirement has been the norm of conduct among the common people.82 To the value of filial piety, the clan rules add a realistic qualifica­ tion. It is necessary for the parents to recognize the growing importance of their sons when they come of age and are ready to take over the family affairs. It is also desirable for the parents to exercise their au­ thority without partiality or abuse, but for the well-being of all family members. In other words, parental authority, though supreme in the family, is not absolute. It is qualified by the value of mutual kindness and understanding. In fact, a number of clan rules maintain that it would be advisable for the parents to be patient and tolerant in over­ looking minor faults.83 Field surveys indicate that this advice agrees with the norm of conduct among the common people. The common people usually consult their grown-up sons.84 They also consider it justifiable to disobey parental orders which are improper.85 Filial piety has a value greater than itself; the clan rules regard it as the basic element in all subordinate-superior relationships. Many rules project the spirit of filial piety into respect for elder brothers, for senior clan members, and for superiors in general.88 One rule, for ex­ ample, follows the Hsiao-ching in suggesting that sobriety in life, selfrespect in official conduct, and honesty to friends are all necessary at­ tributes of a pious son. In short, a pious son is an ideal gentleman.87 Actually, however, the value of brotherly love is not on the same basis as filial piety. An elder brother is only a leader among equals.

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with no authority to regard his younger brothers as subordinates. Hence, the clan rules uphold brotherly love mainly by appealing to the exten­ sion of filial piety, to sentimental affinity, and to the practical advantages of brothers’ co-operating with one another. The behavioral content of brotherly love as given by the clan rules clearly underscores its co-op­ erative nature: affection and kindness on the part of elder brothers, respect and deference on the part of younger brothers. Essentially this means that brothers should compromise and not quarrel.88 One clan rule puts it plainly: “There will be no insoluble difficulty among broth­ ers if one of them suppresses his anger and makes up with a few kind words.”89 Another rule warns that “one who tries to correct his brother’s mistake should never be so overanxious as to hurt his brother’s feelings, since this would not help the situation at all.”90 Brotherly love is essential to the realization of the ideal of the large joint family in which several generations live together. Not only did the clan rules extol this ideal, but the state gave such families official commendations. On the other hand, many clan rules recognize the almost inevitable frictions in large joint families. These frictions stem from many factors: the varying earning powers of brothers, the sharing of goods and services in the household, disputes over inheritance, fa­ voritism of parents, and especially jealousy and resentment between sisters-in-law. The root of all these frictions is the fact that each com­ ponent conjugal unit has an equal share in the common family property and resources.91 The provisions of the clan rules vary on how to deal with these frictions. Some idealistic rules advocate the elimination or suppres­ sion of disharmony by moral persuasion and ethical control. On the other hand, a few realistic rules frankly admit the desirability of break­ ing up a large joint family when disharmony prevails, a course of action suggested long before by the famous Yüan Shih Shih-fan (“Social Code of the Yüan Family” ) of the Sung period. One exceptional rule has a modern ring: it criticizes the large joint family for discouraging the talent and initiative of its individual members.92 However, the majority of clan rules are in favor of a compromise between the ideal and the reality. They suggest that each conjugal unit may cook and dine sep­ arately while continuing to live with the others in the same household. In this manner, brotherly love can still be maintained.98 By implication, each u n it may generally manage its own expenditures from whatever sources it has. This majority opinion is again in accord with the pre­ vailing practice among the common people as revealed by recent field surveys. Apart from die common property of the joint family, each brother or his wife has usually held a “small property of his or her

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own. Ordinarily, brothers have refrained from breaking up the joint family as long as their parents lived.84 The Confucian values of filial piety and brotherly love have probably helped a great many families to live together within three generations in a tolerably harmonious at­ mosphere. As for marriage relationships, the clan rules invariably stress the wife’s virtuous qualities as being essential to the family welfare. Both for moralistic reasons and for reasons of social prestige, the clan rules insist that marriage should be arranged with a family of spotless back­ ground and matching social status. Some clan rules based upon ex­ perience have added two qualifications to this general proposition. First, they quote Hu Yiian of the Sung period in saying that “a wife should come from a family of slightly lower position and a daughter should be married off to a family of slightly better circumstances,” so that married women will be satisfied. Second, they warn that social status should not be mistakenly equated with wealth and influence. Marriages motivated by considerations of wealth and influence fre­ quently result in disputes and unhappy relations between the two fami­ lies. Furthermore, wealthy and influential families often produce con­ ceited and quarrelsome girls. The clan rules urge their members to look for girls with virtuous qualities, adding that such girls are likely to be found in families of high moral standing.88 After marriage, according to the clan rules, a woman should follow the spirit of the "Domestic Rules” in the Li-chi. Ideally she should ob­ serve female seclusion and sex segregation, take her place next to her husband in the family hierarchy, identify her interest with the entire family rather than with her conjugal unit only, and fulfill her duties toward all other family members. In case her husband is over forty years of age and she has not had an heir for him, she should agree to his taking a concubine. In return, a wife is entitled to the respect be­ fitting her status and to protection by the family and clan against mis­ treatm ent by her husband.86 On the mistreatment of a wife by her mother-in-law, however, the clan rules are silent.87 The rules generally forbid a wife to assume power over her hus­ band, although a wife will be highly praised for assuming family re­ sponsibility, taking care of the family’s needs, and raising her sons from childhood when her husband happens to be stupid, ill-behaved, or dead. The stipulation against a wife’s assuming power under normal circum­ stances is dictated by the very nature of family organization. She must be made to subordinate herself to her parents-in-law and to get along well with her sisters-in-law for the sake of family order and harmony.88 If she should assume power over her husband, she would tend to favor

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her own conjugal unit over other component units in the family, and she m ight even disregard the interest of the whole family in favor of her own family by birth. This general proposition does not really pre­ clude a wife’s assuming control of domestic matters so long as what she does is not in conflict with family order, family harmony, and fam­ ily interest. As a recent study points out, traditionally and also nowa­ days, in many families it is the wife who keeps the keys of the chest and controls the domestic economy." W ith regard to clan relationships, one value which all clan rules highly cherish is that of clan leadership. According to the ancient classics, the leader should be chosen in accordance with the feudal principal of primogeniture—the heir of the eldest line of descent, called the tsung-tzu. The clan rules, however, have realistically departed from this principle. Some rules keep the tsung-tzu as a titular head mainly for ceremonial occasions,100 but others never even mention the title. The formal leadership of the clan is generally invested by the rules in the tsu-chang or clan head. A man chosen for this position, according to the rules, should have a fairly high generation-age status and a re­ spectable enough record in the way of fairness, honesty, integrity, capability, and experience to command the respect of most clan mem­ bers. He need not be wealthy or a scholar-official,101 but if he is, so much the better.102 The system of clan heads functioned with consider­ able effectiveness in rural areas until quite recently. A clan head, even when he was old, weak, and poor, still enjoyed respect and mediated between clan members.103 For such a person often embodied the kind of practical Confucian virtues which both the clan rules and the com­ mon people valued. Another im portant value in clan relationships was cordiality and m utual respect among members. The main difficulty was class differen­ tiation. Theoretically, the relationship between members was governed by their respective generation-age status; in reality, however, members of lower generation-age status might have higher social positions. The clan rules had to find a realistic solution to this problem. As one clan rule explains, Close and remote kin all belong to one indivisible body. Good and bad members are of the same descent. The clan relationship forbids deviation and wrong conduct; the sentiment of oneness requires mutual respect and kind­ ness. However, social customs have deteriorated and good feelings have be­ come less and less apparent than before. Most people base their claims on the prestige of their families. They remain friendly to one another only in consideration of individual fortunes. If their wealth is about equal, they call each other brothers. If not, they do not'see each other. Because of some disagreement, they would

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humiliate senior clan members or trample upon helpless members or minority members, without regarding this conduct as wrong. Because of some trivial irritating words, a junior member offends a senior member and considers himself to be the stronger of the two. Some clan members live close to one another, yet do not offer to one another congratulations or condolences on appropriate occasions. Though some clan members live in the same neigh­ borhood, they do not help each other in emergencies.104

Such attitudes are detrimental to clan cohesion; at the same time, they are understandable and frequently encountered. The best solution the clan rules can offer is for those with better social positions to respect those with a higher generation-age status, and also for the latter to make due allowance for the former.106 The value of cordiality and mutual respect is thus redefined by the clan rules in terms of social reality. Finally, with regard to community relationships, the clan rules be­ tray a discrepancy between their moral ideals and their practical ad­ vice. They uphold the value of mutual help among community people and neighbors but fail to specify when and how such help is to be given. In emphasizing community harmony, the clan rules generally give the advice that one should defer to community people, tolerate one’s neigh­ bors, and be tactful toward all. This amounts to recommending a de­ sirable minimum of involvement in community affairs.106 One clan rule frankly states: “Avoid being a witness or a guarantor and you will have no worry in your life,” and “As an old saying goes, ‘Many good deeds are not as good as none.’”107 Though this statement is excep­ tionally outspoken, many other clan rules in less obvious words express the same lukewarm attitude toward community life. The clan rules look upon community relationships essentially from the family and the clan standpoint. The following is a typical ex­ ample: When someone in the clan suffers humiliation and mistreatment from out­ siders, the clan members shall use reason to obtain justice. . . . However, when a clan member disobeys the clan rules, indulges himself in misconduct, arbitrarily dominates the community, infringes upon property of other peo­ ple, or violates the law, the whole clan shall spare no effort to correct his mis­ takes. If he reforms, he deserves respect; if he disregards advice three times in succession and his misconduct might implicate other clan members, he should be brought to the ancestral hall to be reprimanded by the clan head or sent to the government for due punishment. The name of such an of­ fender shall not be entered in the genealogy and upon his death he shall not be buried in the clan cemetery.108

The clan rules contribute to good community relations mainly by their negative restraining influence upon the aggressive misconduct of their members.109

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On the question of friendship, the clan rules are emphatically against keeping bad company, and especially against having friends who fritter away their time in entertainment, amusement, and unbecom­ ing activities. They advise that one should not have too many friends, since this would entail too much expense and not enough benefits. In­ stead, one should keep a few well-chosen friends who are reliable and have good moral qualities. But even with such desirable friends, cau­ tion is still the watchword. One clan rule after another explains that though friendship is one of the five cardinal relationships honored by Confucian ethics, the members should be careful about it. The way to treat good friends is to be neither too intimate nor too stem, but to be sincere and respectful.110 Several clan rules offer the frank sugges­ tion, however, that in dealing with friends one should be “squarely” upright but at the same time “roundly” circumspect, emphasizing one quality or the other as the situation may require.111 According to Confucian theory, as mentioned earlier, one should extend ones moral influence beyond the family and the clan to die community and society at large. By contrast, the value scheme of the clan rules is rather strictly family- and clan-oriented.112 The cohesion and consolidation of the clan group, while desirable, undeniably led to tension in the community between the clan and other groups, notably the poor tenants on the clan property and especially the members of competing clans. At worst, the strong we-group feeling of the clans must have made for community disharmony, lasting resentment, and even inter-clan feuds. Furtherm ore, in overemphasizing family and clan control over indi­ viduals, the clan rules point toward a kind of personality characterized by modesty, caution, and restraint. This type of personality was well suited to the stable social order in traditional China, which was rigid in structure and conventional in mores, but it was scarcely active, reso­ lute, and energetic enough to fulfill the original Confucian ideal of leadership in die service of the community and the state.118 In the preceding pages, we have seen how the scholar-officials’ ideal­ istic interests mingled with realistic considerations in their interpreta­ tion of Confucian values. In some cases, the clan rules strengthened the Confucian theories by making them more specific and applicable; in others, they modified the Confucian teachings just enough to make them reasonably workable in the face of admitted difficulties. In a few instances, the clan rules in effect abandoned the Confucian teachings altogether. They no doubt made significant contributions in spreading this adapted version of Confucian doctrine, but they did so at the price of weakening the vitality and narrowing the outlook of traditional Con­ fucianism.

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THE CLAN RULES’ RESPONSE TO PREVAILING SOCIAL CUSTOMS

The clan rules are interested more in promoting ideal social customs than in discussing prevailing social customs; nevertheless, they cannot ignore die existence of the latter, many of which clearly do not quite agree with the Confucian teachings. In this connection we shall here consider the d an rules’ pronouncements on two issues: first, the re­ ligious customs which prevailed among both the scholar-official class and the common people; and second, the remarriage of widows, which during the Ch’ing period was condoned only among the poor. Neo-Confucianism took a somewhat ambivalent position with re­ gard to Buddhism and Taoism. It was opposed to such of their prac­ tices and customs as conflicted or tended to compete with Confucian­ ism; but at the same time it absorbed certain of their religious concepts on the philosophical level which were acceptable from the Confucian viewpoint. The clan rules in following the Neo-Confucianist teachings generally maintained the same attitude. They raise four major objec­ tions to religious practices.114 First, they make a distinction between acceptable religion and improper heretical beliefs. The acceptable re­ ligions are Buddhism and Taoism. Some clan rules admit that these religions are law-abiding and not without beneficial teachings, but it is generally argued that they are overly profound and abstract, and hence beyond the comprehension of the common people.110 The im­ proper and heretical beliefs are those which lead people to believe mis­ takenly in gods, demons, promised good fortunes, and threatened mis­ fortunes. Especially dangerous are the subversive secret sects, which the law explicitly forbids.116 Second, the clan rules theoretically permit no religion to subvert the family and the clan institutions. Many of the rules forbid their members to join religious orders on the ground that parents do not rear their children for such a purpose.117 Other rules advise their members not to employ Buddhist or Taoist priests to pray for one’s deceased parents because this would impiously suggest that the parents have sinned.118 The presence of priests at funerals is also viewed as contaminating the Confucian rites.119 Third, the rules are most severe in condemning die practice of hold­ ing religious services in mixed company, which violates the principle of sex segregation. It is regarded as revoltingly vulgar for females to brush shoulders with strangers, and especially for them to make pil­ grimages to temples.120 Finally, die clan rules express mild skepticism about the magic powers claimed by various religions. Some rules raise the question whether prayers and offerings are not a form of bribery in the hope of buying good fortune, pointing out that if they are, die deities are hardly

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worthy of their names. Other rules give the rational advice that for illness one should spend one’s money on medicines instead of on prayers and superstitious offerings.121 The attitude on religious practices in the clan rules largely parallels that of the state. A memorial of 1655, soon after the Manchu conquest of China proper, criticized the spread of religions, especially Buddhism, during the Ming period at the expense of the Confucian rites. It con­ demned the wasteful practice of burning offerings at funeral services, the error of asking priests to pray for good fortune in the alleged after­ life, the use of precious resources to build temples and pagodas, and noisy religious gatherings. The memorial also recalled that the first emperor of the Ming had forbidden sending children into religious orders.122 The Sixteen Injunctions proclaimed by the Emperor K’anghsi explicitly prohibited heretical beliefs. By government order many heretical shrines and images were destroyed. One edict after another was issued during the reign of Ch’ien-lung against sorcery, prayers for die cure of illness, pilgrimage across provincial boundaries, secret sects, the use of Buddhist priests in funeral services, and women’s visits to temples.123 W hile the government made some allowance for the com­ mon people in the m atter of following prevailing social customs, it adopted a stem attitude toward scholar-officials who actively spread unorthodox beliefs.124 The prohibition of secret sects with rebellious tendencies was of course stricdy enforced for reasons of state security. There is nonetheless an appreciable distance between the attitude of the clan rules and that of the government The clan rules express their objections to religious practices in relatively mild language, and rarely stipulate any punishment for disregarding these objections. In a few cases, they actually sanction placing Buddhist images next to die ancestral tablets and inviting Buddhist or Taoist monks to be the care­ takers of ancestral halls.125 It is well known that the common people remained largely syncretic and polytheistic in their beliefs and cus­ toms.126 The clan rules are ambivalent on the popular belief in geomancy— the belief in "wind and water,” which holds that the burial site of an ancestor, because of its topographical location and geological compo­ sition, will have mysterious latent effects upon the good fortune or misfortune of the descendants. In many instances this belief had be­ come inseparable from the prevailing customs of the ancestral cult and closely identified with the family interest. A few clan rules express dis­ belief in it; a few others openly affirm it. A large number of them, however, sidestep the main issue of belief or disbelief and concentrate on lesser issues. They suggest that one should not spend too much

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time or money in looking for good geomantic sites, since such sites are often found accidentally; that burials should not be postponed for a long period while a good site is being sought; and that buried bodies should not be shifted to another site which is believed by a geomantic practitioner to be better.127 This last point was also emphasized by an imperial edict in 1735.128 The clan rules on the whole tolerate many religious practices. Their disapproval of religions in general is broad and vague; their objections to some religious practices are mild or ambivalent; and even more significantly, on many other religious customs they are altogether silent. Although the Confucian teachings on religion were occasionally reas­ serted in their original purity, in general they gave ground to prevailing social customs. The remarriage of widows offers another interesting illustration of the relationship between the clan rules and social customs. It was a few of the leading Sung Confucianists who first insisted that "losing chastity is a serious matter, while death by starvation is by comparison a small matter.” At the beginning of the Ming period, the government adopted the policy of rewarding chaste widows with official commen­ dation. The Yung-cheng Emperor of the Ch'ing period encouraged the building of memorial halls in honor of chastity and filial piety. W ith such government encouragement, and with the spread of Neo-Confucian teachings, the scholar-official class came to regard the remar­ riage of widows as infamous.129 Many poor families however did permit the remarriage of widows and in some cases even collected money from the prospective husband. A large number of clan rules do not discuss the remarriage of widows ( except to forbid the remarriage of a widow to a clan member, or par­ ticularly to a brother of her deceased husband, in accordance with die state law )180—probably because the practice was considered beyond hope of correction. A few rules give a realistic appraisal of the prob­ lem.131 They admit that “although the principle of chastity requires a woman to be faithful to her husband forever, even after his death, such conduct cannot be expected of, or imposed upon, every widow.” These clan rules argue that though it is disgraceful for widows to remarry, adultery without remarriage would be far more shameful.182 In approv­ ing remarriage reluctandy, several clan rules add the condition that widows who remarry must leave their family property and children behind to be taken care of by kind members in the clan.188 Confucian morality permeated society. Though the poor permitted the remarriage of widows, they did so only on practical grounds and for lack of alternatives.134 In most cases the clan organization was unable

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to take care of widows whose families could not provide for them. Though a number of clan rules prohibit mistreatment, pressure, and other aggressive acts against helpless widows, and some provide mild punishment for such acts, many rules stipulate no punishment at all. The few clans which were able to give relief to poor widows from their charitable estates are the exceptions. Ironically, many clan rules show an eagerness to reap prestige for the clan from a widow of distinguished chastity by authorizing the use of common funds to solicit a govern­ m ent commendation for her and to build her a commemorative arch.186 Indeed, a chaste widow apparently got more consideration from the clan after her death than during her lifetime. It is reasonable to sug­ gest, though, that if the clan organizations had been better able to protect and provide for poor widows, the clan rules might have been readier to prohibit remarriage in accordance with Neo-Confucianist doctrine. Once again we find the clan rules, while adhering to Confucian theories in the main, making a concession to prevailing social customs. Such concessions were not made lightly. They were permissible only when clan rule compilers considered them to be matters of minor im­ portance and when neither the Confucian theories, nor the existing cir­ cumstances, nor the clan institutions, were capable of furnishing a better solution. CONCLUSION: THE GREAT TRADITION AND THE LITTLE TRADITIONS

The foregoing analysis has shown that die clan rules represent a second-layer value scheme in operation, beneath the idealistic value scheme of Confucian theory and above the ad hoc expediency of every­ day family, clan, and social life. They form a sort of subdivision within Confucianism, mixed with die influence exerted by the state, upheld by the inspiration of certain model scholar-officials, compromised to a cer­ tain extent by practical considerations, and mainly dependent upon the amount of support they can derive from other scholar-officials and their families. The clan rules appear to have been effective in helping people to live in accordance with Confucian ideals and to place a high value upon the Confucian virtues. However, the tremendous emphasis upon conform­ ity also helped to produce a type of personality more introspective and circumspect, and less energetic and active, than what the Confucian theories originally visualized. The clan rules necessarily modified Con­ fucian teachings in the light of practical experience. Their efforts to arrive at a really satisfactory synthesis, however, were limited—not only by thft linnnmprnmising nature of many of the Confucian theories, but

48

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also by certain weaknesses in die clan organization. These limitations unquestionably made the clan rules less effective in influencing the com­ mon people than they might otherwise have been. Nevertheless, not a few values upheld by die clan rules were generally accepted. Taking the clan rules as a point of departure and looking in both di­ rections—their modifications of the Confucian theories on the one hand, and their effects upon the common people on the other—we find a state of affairs that fits very well into die conceptual scheme of great tradition and litde traditions proposed by Redfield. The great tradition and die litde traditions are dependent on each other in a given civilization. The great tradition belongs to a reflective minority; it is consciously culti­ vated and handed down through schools and temples, by philosophers, theologians, teachers, and literary men. The litde tradition develops and keeps itself going in the lives of the majority of unlettered people, especially those in village communities, who take it for granted for die most part and make no conscious effort to analyze it or refine it. W ithin the great tradition are several subdivisions. The two traditions act upon and bring about modifications in each other.186 In terms of this conceptual scheme, we may identify Confucianism as the great tradition, and the clan rules collectively as both one of the subdivisions of the great tradition and a channel of communication be­ tween it and the litde traditions. Precisely because it is a channel of communication, the instrument of a deliberate effort to spread the great tradition in the hope of modifying the litde traditions, it has produced modifications within the great tradition itself by drawing upon, acceptting, and tolerating some aspects of die litde traditions; and it has also produced effects upon the litde traditions in getting some aspects of the great tradition more firmly established. One question should be raised: Under what conditions does this communication and modification process take place? Redfield has dis­ cussed one such condition; we shall add two others. First, the great tradition and the litde traditions must have a fairly large common basis. Redfield makes this point by describing the general characteristics of the peasant attitude: the state of mind at once practical and reverent, die inseparable mixture of prudence and piety, the chosen mode of sobriety, the values of decorum and decency, and the restraint placed upon the showing of emotion.18' Obviously the Confucian virtues— morality, rituals, self-cultivation, and self-restraint—are elaborations of the same characteristics. Second, if the great tradition is to adopt some modifications from or draw closer to the litde traditions, there must already be some elements in die great tradition which point in the same direction. This is a con-

Chinese Clan Rules

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dition which this paper has repeatedly emphasized. We may illustrate it by yet another example. It is well known that the common people in China have always tried to avoid the government as much as they could. W e have seen the clan rules adopt the same attitude, a negative dis­ interestedness in social and political activities outside the clan except on the part of those few who succeed in becoming prominent scholar-offi­ cials, a modification which is at variance with a cardinal assumption of Confucian political theory. But this modification is not due to the in­ fluence of the little traditions or the practical experience of the common people alone. Perhaps even more im portant was the influence of the state, through the law, the imperial injunctions, and other edicts, which, though formally associated with the great tradition, tended to discourage social and political activities. Also influential in this respect was the narrow familism developed by the scholar-officials, again a natural out­ growth of the great tradition, with its emphasis on the family and the clan. Third, for the great tradition to have any effect upon the little tradi­ tions, there must already exist a functional basis for that effect within the little traditions. This is a contribution of Professor Niida s analysis of field survey data. The best example is parental authority in the family hierarchy. The Confucian ethics emphasize it, and this emphasis has definitely had effects upon the common people. However, it is not the only explanation for the universal acceptance of parental authority. Functionally, the necessity of regulating the use of labor within the family has the same result.138 The effect of the great tradition is to re­ inforce and deepen, rather than to create, the value of honoring parental authority. Because these three conditions were fulfilled, the clan rules were able to serve as a channel of communication between the Confucian theories and the common people, and hence as an instrument for modify­ ing both the Confucian heritage and the ways of the unlettered.

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CONFUCIANISM AND THE CHINESE CENSORIAL SYSTEM

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Students of China have long been in the habit of labeling as Confucian all the traits, attitudes, practices, and institutions that have given to the Chinese people their distinctive Chineseness. We do this despite recognizing that each of these things is associated with its own separate ideological complex and that each of these ideological com­ plexes—separate “Confucianisms,” so to speak—is in turn derived only in part from the teachings of Confucius and his immediate disciples. The problem of developing a system of terms that will clearly differentiate these Confucianisms from one another and from the Confucianism of Confucius himself has long perplexed us, as is indicated by several con­ tributions to the present volume. We are perhaps especially inclined to speak of the Confucian state, referring by this term to the centralized, non-feudal, bureaucratic, im­ perial governmental system that appeared under the Ch’in dynasty in 221 b .c . and persisted thereafter without many basic changes until it disappeared with the Ch’ing dynasty in 1912. We call this system a Confucian state because, through much of its history, the imperial gov­ ernment supported the ethical teachings of the classical Confucian think­ ers and their later interpreters as an official orthodoxy and because the scholar-bureaucrats who staffed the government mostly considered themselves to be Confucians. We nevertheless recognize that the Con­ fucianism that is manifested in the so-called Confucian state is neces­ sarily a distorted reflection of the views on government that were held by Confucius, who lived in pre-imperial antiquity. It has become a truism that this “Imperial Confucianism” is, as a matter of fact, a mixture of elements from many philosophical traditions. Other papers in this volume demonstrate in different ways the eclec­ tic character of Imperial Confucianism. The present paper attempts to do so by examining the ideological implications of one of the Confucian state’s most characteristic institutions, the censorial system, with special reference to its workings during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

Confucianism and the Censorial System

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IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONFUCIAN STATE

The two major philosophical systems that contributed significantly to the formation of the so-called Confucian state both developed in the latter part of the feudalists Chou dynasty ( 1122P-256 b.c. ), in a chaotic period of m ulti-state competition that preceded unification under a Ch’in emperor. These were classical Confucianism, as founded by Con­ fucius (551-479 b.c.) and expounded by Mencius (373-288 b.c.) and Hsiin-tzu ( fl. third century b.c. ), and Legalism, as developed principally by Kung-sun Yang (“Lord Shang,” fl. fourth century b.c.) and Han Fei (d. 233 b.c. ). Both were products of their time to such an extent that each in its own fashion is primarily a theory of government, offering the promise of social stability. Legalism is almost exclusively so, and Con­ fucianism is concerned with human problems of a more general sort only because its conception of government is a moralistic and hence a broadly inclusive one. Neither system of thought in its early form emphasizes metaphysics or other abstract concerns. As they are applicable to state administration, the Legalist and classi­ cal Confucian doctrines differ markedly. The Legalists maintain, on the one hand, that: 1. Man is amorally self-seeking. 2. The people exist for the sake of the state and its ruler. 3. The people must therefore be coerced into obedience by rewards and harsh punishments. 4. Law is a supreme, state-determined, amoral standard of conduct and must be enforced inflexibly. 5. Officials must be obedient instruments of the ruler’s will, account­ able to him alone. 6. Expediency must be the basis for all state policy and all state service. 7. The state can prosper only if it is organized for prompt and effi­ cient implementation of the ruler’s will. Conversely, in direct contrast, the classical Confucians maintain that: 1. Man is morally perfectible. 2. The state and its ruler exist for the sake of the people. 3. The people must therefore be encouraged toward goodness by education and virtuous example. 4. Law is a necessary but necessarily fallible handmaiden of the natural moral order and must be enforced flexibly. 5. Officials must be morally superior men, loyal to the ruler but ac­ countable prim arily and in the last resort to Heaven.

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CHARLES O. HÜCKER

6. Morality—specifically, the doctrines of good government ex­ pounded in the classics and manifested in the acts of worthy men of the past—must be the basis for all state policy and all state service. 7. The state can prosper only if its people possess the morale that comes from confidence in the ruler s virtue. In even more generalized terms, it might be said simply that classical Confucianism stands for the claim of the people against the state, for the supremacy of morality. At the other pole. Legalism stands for the supremacy of the state and its inflexible law. In 221 b .c . the state of Ch’in was able to unify all China into the im­ perial pattern that predominated thereafter by utilizing Legalist ideas. But the regime’s harsh and totalitarian policies provoked great resent­ ment, and popular rebellions overthrew the Ch’in in 207 b .c . Subsequent Chinese rulers, while perpetuating the Ch’in imperial structure of gov­ ernment and many Legalist-like attitudes that were inseparably as­ sociated with that structure, dared not openly espouse Legalist doc­ trines. Under the Former Han dynasty (202 b .c . - a .d . 9) it was specifi­ cally ruled that no adherent of Legalism could even be employed as an official, and Confucianism was accepted as the orthodox philosophical justification of the state. From that time on, Chinese dynasties prac­ ticed Confucian-approved ceremonies and entrusted administration to scholar-officials versed in the literature of classical Confucianism. The Confucianism that was thus adopted as the state ideology was not, however, identical with classical Confucianism. It was an interpre­ tation by the Han-dynasty scholar Tung Chung-shu ( 179-104 b .c . ). His Imperial Confucianism, for one thing, is more strongly theistic and meta­ physical than the original. Moreover, it glorifies the ruler almost to the point of negating the anti-statism of the classical doctrine. That is to say, it compromises with the inescapable fact that the Chinese had to live with and under an autocratic, centralized government on the Ch’in pattern. It is consequently an amalgam of classical Confucian and Legalist ideas. This official state ideology, furthermore, was by no means a static thing. It was modified anew from time to time. Some Taoist and even Buddhist ideas eventually came to be added to the mixture, though Con­ fucian and Legalist elements remained at all times predominant. So great a change was wrought in the ideological alignment during the Sung dynasty (960-1279) that Western writers habitually label the new mixture Neo-Confucianism, to differentiate it clearly from classical Con­ fucianism. We make further refinements by speaking freely of Han Con­ fucianism, Sung Confucianism, or Ming Confucianism, for example, as

Confucianism and the Censorial System

53

identifiable subcategories within the broadly inclusive category of Im­ perial Confucianism. Im perial Confucianism in all its varities represents a compromising of certain basic principles in classical Confucianism. The process of change is particularly evident in the case of law. The early Confucian distrust of law simply could not persist once all of China was united under a centralized, bureaucratically administered government. The very vastness of the empire and the ever-increasing complexity of gov­ ernmental responsibilities, coupled with an inevitable desire for uni­ formity and consistency in relations between state and subject, required some degree of compromise with the Legalist insistence on codification. Before long im perial Confucianists were compiling voluminous law codes and commentaries. But this was not a complete Confucian sur­ render to Legalist principles; rather, it has been called the Confucianization of Chinese law. The Legalist form of law was retained, but the laws were infused with a Confucian spirit. Confucian ideas were consistently brought into battle to “tem per the rigor of the law” by injecting into juristic considerations the classical Confucian emphases on ethics and li, propriety.1 Thus law, though elaborately codified, remained the instru­ m ent of morality. A differentiation between Legalist and classical Con­ fucian influences in Im perial Confucianism consequently cannot be based on w hether or not legal sanctions are relied upon. It must rather be based on the purposes for which legal sanctions are sought Reliance on law to promote the state at the expense of the people might represent the persistence of a Legalist sp irit and excessive punishment in any case can be attributed only to Legalist influences. But reliance on law to promote equity and popular well-being clearly suggests the persist­ ence of a Confucian spirit within a Legalist-like apparatus.2 In imperial times there was no opportunity for classical Confucian ideals to persist unmodified. State subsidization of Confucianism forced would-be bureaucrats of all persuasions, whether or not they were Con­ fucian by personal conviction, to become at least nominal Confucians in order to pass the civil-service examinations that qualified one for office. It was inevitable that the bureaucratic ranks would include some men whose personal convictions resembled Legalist principles more than classical Confucian ones. But no one labeled himself a Legalist, and Legalism was not perpetuated as a philosophic tradition. Since everyone was Confucian, Confucianism necessarily assimilated certain Legalist elements. On the other hand, those bureaucrats whose personal convictions genuinely resembled classical Confucian principles had no choice but to adapt themselves to prevailing conditions of government service. This required that they manifest in practice certain attitudes

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consonant with Legalist principles and not consonant with classical Con­ fucian ones, since the structure and much of the rationale of the state they served was Legalistic. They did so unwittingly, no doubt. Thus the seventeenth-century scholar Ku Yen-wu could justifiably lament that self-styled Confucians of his time righteously denounced C hin Legalism while being unaware that they still served i t 3 Inasmuch as these bureaucrats owed their official status to demon­ strated competence in the classical Confucian literature, sincerely con­ sidered themselves to be latter-day protagonists of classical Confucian­ ism, and would have rejected in alarm any intimation that they were un-Confucian, it would be presumptuous indeed to suggest that some of them were little more than Legalists in Confucian dress. The bureau­ cratic ideology did include a spectrum of ideas ranging from Legalist­ like realism at one extreme to unchallengeably Confucian idealism at the other, it is true; but they were all within the expanded mainstream of Imperial Confucianism. It has been proposed, consequently, that in referring to the ideas and motivations of bureaucrats in imperial times we should replace the words Legalism and Confucianism with such terms as “rigorist Confucianism” and “humanist Confucianism.” In the following account of how these poles of thought manifested themselves in the organization and functioning of the imperial censorial system, I shall continue to refer to them as Legalism and Confucianism, but only for the sake of convenience and without meaning to imply that the early doctrines persisted as separate and competing traditions. c h in a ’s c e n so r ia l sy s t e m

The traditional Chinese censorship that concerns us here has noth­ ing to do, characteristically, with governmental control of private pub­ lications and entertainments. It is not a normal police activity. Rather, it represents an organized and systematic effort by the government to police itself. The scope of this effort was very broad, encompassing all levels of administration, all governmental personnel, and both policyformulating and policy-implementing processes. Against the formulators of policy, its weapon was remonstrance; against the implementers, impeachment. As in most other governmental systems, control powers in traditional China were widely exercised. Officials of every status, and non-officials also, did commonly impeach (or at least denounce) governmental per­ sonnel and remonstrate with their governmental superiors. In China, as we shall subsequently see, there were special sanctions for the gen­ eral exercise of the right or obligation to criticize; and we shall take note of this general diffusion of the right to criticize to the extent that

Confucianism and the Censorial System

55

Legalist or Confucian principles are related to it. But criticism of this sort—unorganized and unsystematized—is not the type of censorship th at primarily concerns us. Our concern is rather with specialized cen­ sorship: highly organized, highly systematized, and highly institution­ alized, concentrated in particular governmental agencies and officials whose prescribed function was to impeach or remonstrate or both, vested with high prestige and special sanctions, providing a routine surveillance over all governmental activities. It is this censorship that is distinctively Chinese and that has specially im portant ideological implications. By Ming times the system had attained a high degree of complexity, both in its organization and in its functioning. It included hundreds of censorial officials grouped in three categories of agencies: (1) a Chief Surveillance Office or Censorate at the capital, (2) six Offices of Scru­ tiny also at the capital, and (3) thirteen Provincial Surveillance Offices, one located at each provincial capital. W ithin these three types of agencies were concentrated the powers and obligations of what the Chinese traditionally called surveillance officials ( cKa-kuan ) and re­ monstrance officials (yen-kuan). Censors, supervising secretaries, and surveillance commissioners all had specified surveillance and impeach­ m ent functions of general scope. The supervising secretaries also exer­ cised specially prescribed controls over the flow of documents to and from the respective ministries; virtually all state documents passed through their hands, whether memorials to the throne or decrees from the throne, and were subject to a kind of editorial veto by the su­ pervising secretaries. Specialized remonstrance functions were not so widely diffused, however, being the prescribed additional duty of the censors and supervising secretaries only—in Chinese terms, “the avenues of criticism” ( yen-lu ) * The roots of this censorial system go deep into Chinese history, and the manner of its evolution reveals something of the conception that underlay it. W hat is particularly apparent is that the amalgamation of surveillance and remonstrance functions into one agency, whether the Censorate or the combined Offices of Scrutiny, was a relatively late development. In origin and early evolution, the two functions were quite distinct.5 The term by which Chinese censors have always been known, yüshih, probably has had longer continuous use as an official title than any other in any language; for it appears as a title in oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty (traditional dates 1766-1122 b.c . ) and was used thereafter until a .d . 1912. Until Ch’in times, the title seems principally to have been associated with men who were court recorders and chron­ iclers.® Then it was adopted for use in the imperial Censorate, which

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was a creation of the Ch’in and Han rulers. The yü-shih of early im­ perial times may indeed have engaged occasionally in remonstrance, as was every officials wont, but their prescribed and characteristic func­ tion as yü-shih was to provide disciplinary surveillance over the bureau­ crats, as instruments of monarchical—or at least of central administra­ tive-control.7 Specialized remonstrance functions developed separately, being as­ sociated with the titles Supervising Secretary ( chi-shih-chung, literally "palace attendant”) and Grand Remonstrant ( chien-i ta-fu)> which seem to have been originated by the Ch’in dynasty. For many centuries both these titles, or near equivalents, were reserved for eminent digni­ taries considered suitable companions and mentors for the emperors. The early supervising secretaries, therefore, did not exercise the clerkly control over documents that occupied their successors in Ming times. But by the Tang era (618-907) both titles had come to designate nor­ mal bureaucratic positions. The supervising secretaries then did control documents as later, and the grand remonstrants bore the heavy assigned responsibility of criticizing the emperor himself.8 The first tendencies toward amalgamation of the surveillance and remonstrance functions appeared early in the Sung period, when special policy censors (yen-shih yü-shih) were established in the Censorate to "speak out about affairs.” For a time newly appointed censors were even punished if, within a short time following appointment, they failed to submit criticisms of important matters. But this first Censorate in­ vasion of the remonstrators’ preserve was short-lived, and the traditional distinctions were quickly restored.8 Full-scale amalgamation of the surveillance and remonstrance func­ tions came about under the “barbarian” Yiian dynasty (1260-1368), which succeeded the Sung and directly preceded the Ming. The Mongol rulers promptly abolished the title and office of remonstrator. They also converted the supervising secretaries from document inspectors to court annalists. The Censorate—the supreme instrument of monarchical con­ trol—was, on the other hand, greatly expanded in staff and scope. Its net of disciplinary surveillance was now thrown more efficiently over the bureaucracy than ever before, through the creation of branch Censorates and the establishment of Provincial Surveillance Offices ancestral to those of the Ming period but directly subordinate administratively to the metropolitan Censorate. This was probably the most highly cen­ tralized and most widely pervasive control system of Chinese history. Apparently as a sop to the native tradition, the Mongol rulers assigned to censors the additional duty of remonstrance. Kubilai Khan (reigned 1260-94), for instance, once announced: "The duties of the Censorate’s

Confucianism and the Censorial System

57

officials lie in speaking out straightforwardly. If We should by chance commit improprieties, let them speak out vigorously, without conceal­ m ent and without fearing others.”10 Hence the absorption of the re­ monstrance function into the surveillance organization was complete, undoubtedly to the detrim ent of its effective exercise. W ith the excep­ tion of a few years early in the Ming period, the office of remonstrator was not again reconstituted. But supervising secretaries were restored to their old document-control functions by the founder of the Ming dynasty, and thenceforth they and the censors, equally, shared both remonstrance and surveillance functions. W hen we consider the censorial system and its history in the light of the Legalist-Confucian tension within Imperial Confucianism, a few significant correlations suggest themselves. For one thing, I am inclined to believe that the very existence of the censorial establishment mani­ fests Legalist concepts of state organization; it appears to me that only Legalist-inclined minds, with a bureaucratic passion for impersonality, organizational clarity, and efficiency, could have produced such an elaborate mechanism. On the other hand, the presence within the sys­ tem of specialized remonstrance agencies, agencies whose very exist­ ence calls into question the inviolability of the ruler’s will, clearly sug­ gests a genuinely Confucian influence. Further, it would seem that the evolution of the system—the progressive extension and systematization of censorship and die progressive curtailment of its remonstrance func­ tions—indicates an increasing stress on Legalist principles at the expense of classical Confucian ones. This accords well with the prevailing interpretation of Chinese institutional history, which emphasizes the steady growth of despotic absolutism. THE FUNCTION OF SURVEILLANCE

There can be no reasonable doubt, I think, that the censorial func­ tions of disciplinary surveillance and impeachment must be viewed as manifestations of Legalist rather than classical Confucian ideas. The classical Confucian thinkers and the early Legalists equally emphasized the need to obtain proper men for government office. But, whereas the Legalists were also very concerned with the problem of controlling men once in office, the Confucian thinkers had no worries on this score. They seemed to feel that once a morally superior man had been placed in authority, he could be trusted to do what was right. As a m atter of fact, the whole spirit of classical Confucian political thinking clearly implies that he should not be interfered with. In at­ tem pting to place superior men in office to restrain the rapacious rulers of their time, Confucius and his followers could not concede, for stra-

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tegic reasons, that the officials themselves might require restraints. And there was a principle involved, too. Confucius said, “If the ruler him­ self is upright, all will go well even though he does not give orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed.”11 Thus officials should be restrained, not by coercive surveillance, but by the virtuous example of their superiors. This prin­ ciple was clearly cited in a great policy debate between Confucianminded scholars and Legalist-minded ministers at the Han court in 81 r .c . The scholars indignantly rebuked the ministers for having put to death two magistrates, saying: “. . . when members of the reigning clan are not upright, then laws and regulations are not enforced; when the ruler’s right hand men are not upright, then treachery and evil flourish. . . . Thus, when a ruler commits a mistake, the minister should rectify it; when superiors err, inferiors should criticize them. When high ministers are upright, can magistrates be anything else? It is indeed highly remiss of you who are in actual control of administration to find fault with others instead of turning to examine your own persons.”18 Criticism should be directed by inferiors at superiors, not vice versa. Especially, classical Confucian thought does not condone informers. Confucius said that a superior man “hates those who point out what is hateful in others,” and one of his immediate disciples said, “I hate those who mistake tale-bearing for honesty.” “The gentleman,” in Confucius’ definition, “calls attention to the good points in others; he does not call attention to their defects. The small man does just the reverse of this.” And Mencius’ contempt for informers is plain: “W hat future misery have they and ought they to endure,” he exclaimed, “who talk of what is not good in others!”13 The attitude of the Legalists was quite the reverse. They not only condoned informers; they would have the ruler encourage them and rely on them. Disciplinary surveillance was in fact a foundation stone in the Legalist-conceived state, and it was under the Legalist-dominated Ch’in dynasty that censorship of this sort was first institutionalized. The Legalists specifically maintained that criticism should be directed by superiors at inferiors: “In case of transgression of the law,” Kung-sun Yang said, “then those of higher rank criticize those of lower rank and degree.”14 Kubilai Khan once said of his three top-level governmental organs that “the Secretariat is my left hand, the Bureau of Military Affairs is my right hand, and the Censorate is the means for my keeping both hands healthy.”15 This was the Legalist conception manifested also in the censorial system of Ming China: both the Censorate and the Offices of Scrutiny were intended primarily to check on the performance of duties by officials and to denounce those who were remiss. The func-

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tions of all governmental agencies were carefully prescribed, in great detail, in such codifications as the voluminous 228-chapter “Collected Institutes of the Ming” {Ta Ming H ui-tien). The number and nature of impeachment entries in the day-by-day chronicles called “The True Records of the Ming” ( Ming Shih-lu) make it quite clear that the cen­ sorial officials ordinarily devoted most of their time and energy to seeing that these functions were in fact performed, and performed as pre­ scribed. The censorial officials were numerous and ubiquitous, and their surveillance processes were themselves voluminously prescribed and carefully routinized. The censors, supervising secretaries, and pro­ vincial surveillance commissioners—one or another—routinely examined all state documents; they routinely inspected all state files and accounts; they routinely received and checked activity reports from other agen­ cies; they routinely visited and interrogated every official in the em­ peror’s employ; they accepted and investigated complaints from the people. In consequence of their investigations, they impeached officials high and low for violations of the law: for being indolent and inefficient, for delaying or otherwise hindering the execution of state business, for keeping improper records, for being ignorant of state regulations, for failing to observe prescribed administrative routine, for failing to en­ force state policies or regulations, for unprescribed expenditures, for freeing the guilty or punishing the innocent, for exceeding their au­ thority, etc.16 A very large proportion of all their recorded activities reflects a striking, and strikingly Legalist, concern for legality and effi­ ciency not only in the thinking of those who prescribed the censorial rules but in the thinking of those who wielded censorial powers. Empowered and expected to find fault with their bureaucratic col­ leagues, the censorial officials must necessarily have gained great satis­ faction from the exercise of their surveillance and impeachment func­ tions, especially since they were ordinarily young and new to the civil service. It was established Ming policy to appoint neophytes, appar­ ently in the expectation that, being merely on the threshold of govern­ m ent careers, they would have little to lose and much to gain by the zealous prosecution of their assigned duties. And it was certainly true that a censor or supervising secretary who made a name for himself as a zealous investigator and impeacher could expect to rise rapidly into high civil-service ranks. The dedicated impeacher was a kind of ideal. Probably the most renowned censor-in-chief of the whole Ming period, Ku Tso, who conducted a great purge of the Censorate itself in 1428, was known awesomely as “Sit-alone Ku” because of the detached, un­ friendly scrutiny that he daily inflicted on his fellow participants in court assemblies.17 Considering the circumstances, it is not surprising that these officials

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at times had to be dissuaded from excesses of Legalist zeal. In 1434, for example, a censor impeached a provincial official for punishing a criminal too lightly, only to be rebuked mildly by the Hsiian-te Emperor (1425-35) on the decidedly non-Legalist premise that “punishing too lightly and punishing too severely are not the same.”18 And even the tyrannical Yung-lo Emperor (1402-24) lost patience at his supervising secretaries’ penchant for denouncing petty clerical errors in documents: “You have all recently made an endless fuss,” he complained to a group of them, “about trifling errors in memorials, and rejected the memorials for this reason. This is really too muchl Paperwork annoyances accu­ mulate in bureaucratic work, and one’s energy is sometimes exhausted by them, so that it is difficult to avoid errors. Hereafter, whenever me­ morials include erroneous characters in numbers, dates, and so forth, just block them out and rectify them in marginal notations. There’s no need to inform me!”19 Thus the very existence—and certainly the elaborateness—of the censorial surveillance processes would seem justifiable only on Legalist and not on classical Confucian premises; and censorial officials, in carry­ ing out their duties, consistently acted in accordance with Legalist ideas. They were called upon to uphold the law and tried to do so, being literal about it at times to the point of pettiness. But Confucian ideas did make some inroads into this sphere of Legalist influence. This is largely because in imperial times Chinese law, as we have seen above, was no longer the amoral law conceived by the early Legalists, but had become Confucianized and hence moral­ istic. While upholding the law, therefore, censorial officials at the same time upheld morality, which was prescribed by law. Their impeach­ ments clearly reveal this dual concern, and to that extent they manifest a Confucian influence. Officials were denounced not only for their illegalities in a narrow sense, but for personal immorality as well: for licentiousness, for venality, for improprieties of all kinds. The great authoritarian grand secretary of the sixteenth century, Chang Chiicheng, for example, was denounced by censors and other officials for failing to observe the mourning rituals prescribed by Confucian tradi­ tion after his father’s death in 1577.20 Confucian influence is similarly observable at times in what the cen­ sorial officials did not do. A good example is another instance of a censorial denunciation of Chang Chii-cheng, ibis one in 1576. A scath­ ing broadside denunciation of Chang was submitted by a censor named Liu Tai. Liu had originally won entry into the civil service at exami­ nations presided over by Chang, and it had been on Chang’s recom­ mendation that he had subsequently been appointed to the Censorate.

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In the view of Ming Confucians, these circumstances created a masterdisciple bond between the two men. Liu’s denunciation of Chang con­ sequently provoked counteraccusations that Liu’s act was one of gross impropriety. Chang himself seems to have been shocked most by this un-Confucian aspect of the attack, reflecting that no such “disciple” had attacked his patron throughout the two centuries of the Ming dy­ nasty’s prior existence. And Liu himself, in his denunciation, felt it necessary to apologize for and justify his breach of Confucian propriety, for which he was ultimately dismissed from the civil service.21 This incident suggests how classical Confucian ideas—emphasizing morality and the importance of personal relationships—consistently in­ truded into censorial operations. But it is particularly instructive in demonstrating that these Confucian ideas remained entangled with Legalist ones. For Liu’s justification of his impropriety is stated as follows: When I attained my doctoral degree Chang Chii-cheng was chief examiner, and when I was serving in a ministry it was Chang Chii-cheng who recom­ mended my selection as a censor. I have therefore been abundantly favored by Chang Chii-cheng. The reason why I now attack him so presumptuously is that the ruler-minister relationship is so important a one that it excludes consideration of personal favors. I hope that Your Majesty, taking note of my unenlightened earnestness, will curb the minister’s power so as to prevent him from disrupting the proper course of events and impeding the state. Then, though I should die, I shall not have died in vain.22

Here Liu appealed to the Legalist doctrine that loyalty to one’s ruler overrides the obligations inherent in other relationships. Moreover, though Liu had in passing accused Chang of personal immorality, the argument on which he relied most heavily in denouncing Chang is not a Confucian, moralistic one but a strictly Legalist one: that Chang’s growing authority endangered the state. In an earlier section of his impeachment he had pointedly called the Emperor’s attention to the fact, as he saw it, that people were coming to stand more in awe of Chang than of the throne. There could hardly be a more naked appeal to the Legalist inclinations of an emperor. THE FUNCTION OF REMONSTRANCE

On the conceptual level, the censorial function of remonstrance is even more clearly linked to classical Confucian doctrines than those of surveillance and impeachment are linked to Legalist doctrines. And it is because censorial officials were at their dramatic best in remonstrat­ ing that the whole censorial system can easily be misinterpreted as an essentially Confucian institution.

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The recorded history of the feudal Chou period abounds in exam­ ples of ministers—recorders among others—who doggedly remonstrated with rulers, often at great cost to themselves. The early Confucian thinkers, always interested in imposing their own notions of good gov­ ernment on the rulers of their time, patterned themselves after these models. Confucius often rebuked the powerful to their faces, as when he told a grandee who had complained that his people were committing burglary, “If only you were free from desire, they would not steal even if you paid them to.”23 And Mencius, in his wide travels, repeatedly said such bold things to rulers that they “changed countenance” or hastily changed the subject.24 The early Confucian thinkers, therefore, became through their own conduct examples to be emulated by later remonstrators. Some classical Confucian doctrines seem at first glance to contradict the notion that morally superior men must remonstrate with their su­ periors. The great Confucian emphasis on loyalty and filial piety, for example, would seem to discourage remonstrance. And some of Con­ fucius’ own statements add to the apparent confusion. He once said, “A ruler in employing his ministers should be guided solely by the pre­ scriptions of ritual. Ministers in serving their ruler, solely by devotion to his cause.” When a disciple asked how one’s friends should be dealt with, Confucius said, “Inform them loyally and guide them discreetly. If that fails, then desist. Do not court humiliation.”25 These are by no means the only statements attributed to Confucius that are difficult to reconcile with the general tenor of his doctrines. Whether or not it can be considered that Confucius actually said such things does not concern us here. The statements, genuine or spurious, exist in the Confucian lore that was part of every Ming minister’s intel­ lectual baggage. Taken in isolation, they could be understood to sanc­ tion certain kinds of ministerial subservience and opportunism as being Confucian, despite their being clearly out of harmony with general Confucian principles and in essential accord with the Legalist view of ministership. It must also be admitted that the authoritarian Chu Hsi form of Neo-Confucianism, which was the officially orthodox Imperial Confucianism of Ming times, might have dissuaded remonstrators by emphasizing loyalty to the ruler even more strongly as a cardinal virtue. Subservience and opportunism, however, are quite clearly not min­ isterial qualities that the early Confucians admired and advocated. Their own conduct and an overwhelming proportion of their comments on what ministers ought to be make this clear. When asked by a dis­ ciple how a prince should be served, Confucius said, “Do not deceive him, but when necessary withstand him to his face.” Confucius also

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told a grandee that “if a ruler's policies are bad and yet none of those about him oppose them, such spinelessness is enough to ruin a state.”2* The great early compendium “Record of Ceremonial” ( Li-chi ) quotes Confucius in the same vein repeatedly. For example, “for one whose place is near the throne, not to remonstrate is to hold his office idly for the sake of gain.”27 And Mencius mourned, “Now-a-days, the remon­ strances of a minister are not followed, and his advice is not listened to, so that no blessings descend on the people.”28 The Confucian precepts about being loyal and those about remon­ strating were easily reconciled; for loyalty was defined as being more than subservience. “How can he be said to be truly loyal,” Confucius asked, “who refrains from admonishing the object of his loyalty?”29 And Mencius said, “He who restrains his prince loves his prince.” Men­ cius expanded on this concept often, notably in the following passage: Among the people of Ch’i there is no one who speaks to the king about benevo­ lence and righteousness. Are they thus silent because they do not think that benevolence and righteousness are admirable? [No, but] in their hearts they say, ‘This man is not fit to be spoken with about benevolence and righteous­ ness.” Thus they manifest a disrespect than which there can be none greater. I do not dare to set forth before the king any but the ways of [the idealized legendary emperors] Yao and Shun. There is therefore no man of Ch’i who respects the king as much as I do.

Mencius also explained that “to urge one’s sovereign to difficult achieve­ ments may be called showing respect for him. To set before him what is good and repress his perversities may be called showing reverence for him.”30 Even parents, to whom in classical Confucianism one owes primary loyalty, cannot be immune from remonstrance: “to remonstrate with them gently without being weary . . . may be pronounced filial piety”; “when they have faults, to remonstrate with them, and yet not withstand them . . . —this is what is called the completion [by a son] of his proper services.”31 The Confucian primer, “The Classic of Filial Piety” ( Hsiaoching ), stipulates that one should serve a superior by assenting to his good inclinations but rescuing him from his evil inclinations. It also reports that when a disciple asked if filial piety meant for the son to obey the father’s orders, Confucius said, “How can you say this! How can you say this! . . . When confronted with unrighteousness, the son cannot but remonstrate with his father and the minister cannot but remonstrate with his ruler. Therefore, when confronted with unright­ eousness, remonstrate against it! How could merely obeying the father s orders be considered filial piety?”32 The Confucian-minded scholars who in 81 b .c . debated state policy

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with Han ministers put this problem of remonstrance, as so many others, in clear perspective. When rebuked by one of the ministers for their trenchant criticisms, they replied: Benighted provincials that we are, who have seldom crossed die precincts of this great court, we realize that our wild and uncouth speeches may indeed find no favor here even unto offending the authorities. Yet, so it seems to us, as a medicinal tonic, though bitter to the palate, still is of great benefit to the patient, so words of loyalty, though offensive to the ear, may also be found beneficial to mend one’s morals. A great blessing is to be able to hear straight­ forward denial; it cheapens one to hear nothing but adulatory praise. As swift winds are raging through the forest, so flattering words encompass the rich and powerful. After hearing daily at this court controlling myriads of li [Chinese miles] of territory nothing but servile aye-aye’s, you hear now the straightforward nay-nay’s of honest scholars. ’Tis indeed a great opportunity for you, Lord High Minister, to receive a well-needed physic. . . .88

So strong was the classical Confucian insistence on this aspect of the loyal minister’s service that remonstrance became not only the right but the duty of all officials in the Confucian state. "Such criticism not only served the people—it prolonged the life of the dynasty.”84 Em­ perors consistently, therefore, actually called upon their officials to remonstrate. And, as we have seen, remonstrance was institutionalized by the establishment of special remonstrance officials. This theoretical concept of remonstrance, as I have already sug­ gested, draws little support from Legalist ideas. The Legalist view of kingship has no place for the moralistic criticisms of the rulers that classi­ cal Confucianism advocates, and it would seem to imply a distaste for the very fact of remonstrance. Nevertheless, remonstrators in practice could gain considerable inspiration from the Legalist teachings; for the Legalists did advocate remonstrance of certain sorts. Legalist writings, as a m atter of fact, often sanction the remonstrance principle in general terms. Han Fei listed paying no heed to remon­ strance among ten common faults of rulers and praised at great length some of the remonstrators of ancient times.85 He warned rulers against ignoring advice and alienating "frank and straightforward speakers.” He particularly warned that “if the ruler takes advice only from min­ isters of high rank, refrains from comparing different opinions and testi­ fying to the truth, and uses only one man as a channel of information, then ruin is possible.”86 This last-mentioned warning, especially, could well have been used by later censorial officials against any attem pt to curtail the censorial “avenues of criticism.” As a matter of fact, the very concept of an insti­ tutionalized system of remonstrance, like that of an institutionalized

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system of surveillance and impeachment, is apparently more Legalist than Confucian in its implications. When one concedes an advantage in die ruler’s having an abundance and variety of opinions available, one implies that no one adviser can be trusted to have opinions that are consistently right or to express them sincerely. Original Confucianism, by contrast, would seem to imply that it is perfectly proper for the ruler to be guided by only one adviser, if this adviser is the best man available by Confucian standards. It is in this sense that classical Confucianism is authoritarian and Legalism egalitarian. W hat is right, in Confucian­ ism, has no necessary correlation at all with majority opinion—except, of course, in the very vague premise that the mass of the people some­ how manifests the will of Heaven. It is precisely in regard to this basic premise, however, that Legal­ ism’s special bias regarding remonstrance appears. Han Fei reported, “They say that, of old, Pien Ch’iao [a legendary physician], when treat­ ing serious diseases, pierced through bones with knives. So does the sage on rescuing the state out of danger offend the ruler’s ear with loyal words.”37 This makes explicit a basic difference in the Legalist and classical Confucian views of ministerial remonstrance. The Legalistm inded remonstrator rebukes the ruler for neglecting his own selfish interest, whereas the Confucian-minded remonstrator rebukes the ruler for deviating from the natural moral order and the interests of the people. The difference lies in the content of remonstrance, not in the fact of remonstrance. An even more notable difference lies in the contrasting manners of remonstrance advocated by the two schools. Confucius urged his dis­ ciples to be ready, if attacked, “to die for the good Way,” and warned that “to see w hat is right and not to do it is cowardice.”88 The Confucianm inded remonstrator must therefore stand firm for his principles, remon­ strating bluntly, unflinchingly, and without compromise, whatever the cost to himself. This view of remonstrance is ridiculous in Legalist eyes. According to Han Fei, the Legalist remonstrator, being thoroughly op­ portunistic, “must carefully observe the sovereign’s feelings of love and hate before he starts persuading him.”39 W hatever end the minister may wish to attain, he amorally phrases his remonstrance as an appeal to the ruler’s self-interest and self-esteem, allowing no possibility of a re­ action injurious to himself. “In general,” Han Fei said, “the business of the persuader is to embellish the pride and obliterate the shame of the persuaded.” Han Fei devoted a long essay to a detailed discussion, in an utterly Machiavellian spirit, of the techniques that a minister must employ if he hopes to impose his will on a ruler. “The dragon is a créa-

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ture which is docile and can be tamed and ridden,” he concluded. “But under its neck are reversed scales which stick out a full foot, and anyone who comes in contact with them loses his life. A ruler of men is much like the dragon; he too has reversed scales, and an adviser who knows how to keep clear of them will not go far wrong.”40 This opportunism contrasts sharply with the Coufucian ideal. The Confucian must not only remonstrate about morality; he must do so in a moral manner. Officials of necessity had to compromise this classical Confucian ideal once a centralized empire had been established. The early thinkers had served and taught in a social context that permitted them more freedom of movement than bureaucrats were later to enjoy. When their remonstrances went unheeded—or when they felt that, in general, the moral Way did not prevail—Confucius and Mencius merely left the court in question and wandered to another in search of more congenial surroundings. Both repeatedly urged that this was the only course open to a moral minister.41 Especially in late Chou times, the competition between states was so keen that a renowned adviser could get a hearing and a substantial emolument almost anywhere, and this circumstance naturally emboldened such men as Mencius to speak very frankly to their temporary patrons, in a spirit of independence and detachment. But after all China had been brought under one rule by the Ch’in and Han regimes, the bureaucrat found himself in a much less enviable po­ sition. He might remonstrate, and if his remonstrances went unheeded or if his principles were consistently violated he might indeed withdraw from service. But where could he go? There was no escaping the state; there was only one ruler and only one governmental structure. The bureaucrat had the choice of giving loyal service to a ruler whom he might consider evil or of abandoning entirely the sense of political re­ sponsibility that is imbedded in the whole Confucian ideology. Faced by this choice, some frustrated Confucians abandoned bu­ reaucratic careers in favor of the anchorite self-cultivation that had always been advocated by China’s anti-government Taoist thinkers.4* Other Confucians resolutely upheld the traditional ideal of political service by remonstrating fearlessly, at the risk of disgrace and perhaps death for themselves and their families. The typical Confucian of im­ perial times, however, was neither a die-hard moralist nor a resigned hermit, but a practicing bureaucrat in circumstances which frustrated attempts to embody all the classical Confucian virtues. He kept himself alive and prospering, and hence able to provide the filial service to his parents that classical Confucianism demanded, by being prudently sub­ servient to his ruler in much the way Legalism had prescribed. On the other hand, his subservience was so modified by moralistic considéra-

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tions as to make him much less than an ideal Legalist minister and at times to bring disgrace and hardship upon his family, in contravention of a basic Confucian principle. The practice of remonstrance in Ming times illustrates both the dangers that forthright remonstrators encountered in China’s imperial history and the extent to which Legalist influence had affected this Confucian-hallowed institution. At the outset it must be noted that the Ming government was espe­ cially ill-suited to forthright remonstrance. Its tightly centralized struc­ ture was unusually conducive to autocracy, and its emperors as individ­ uals tended to be unusually despotic and tyrannical. The tradition was created by the founder of the dynasty, the Hung-wu Emperor ( 136898), who had risen from the status of an illiterate commoner. Almost fanatically jealous of his imperial power, he tried to secure and preserve it by ruthless Legalist means. He eventually exterminated many of the powerful men who had helped him gain the throne, together with thou­ sands of their relatives and friends, and reorganized the government so as to centralize all control in his own hands. The Hung-wu Emperor had a particular aversion to some aspects of the classical Confucian heritage. He honored Confucius himself, apparently because Confucius seemed to favor loyalty, stability, and order. The “True Records,” as a m atter of fact, show the Hung-wu Emperor to have been an unwearying lecturer on the subject of Confucian-style ministerial responsibilities. But Mencius infuriated him. He thought Mencius was disrespectful to rulers (this was undoubtedly tru e), and he said that if Mencius were still alive he would have to be punished severely. In 1394 he created a special board of scholars to edit the text of Mencius’ writings, purging those passages that spoke disparagingly of the position of rulers and those that urged ministers to remonstrate against rulers’ errors. In all, eighty-five passages were struck out. The emasculated edition that resulted was printed and cir­ culated for official use in all schools.43 The Hung-wu Emperor’s successors were, for the most part, of the same breed. Occasionally a Confucian-minded ruler such as the Hsiiante Emperor (1425-35) emerged, and all Ming emperors, in accordance w ith the now long-established custom, recurringly mouthed the phrases th at enjoined officials to speak their minds freely. The acknowledged dogma was that “since antiquity sage emperors and enlightened kings have established remonstrance officials in the desire to hear of their own shortcomings.”44 Nevertheless, the Ming emperors were characteristi­ cally intolerant of criticism; and the codified regulations as well as the successive imperial exhortations of the Ming period, while showing the

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greatest care for systematic and effective censorial surveillance over die bureaucracy, give little evidence that censorial officials were seriously encouraged to engage in remonstrance at all. The Ming emperors specifically deprived censorial officials of at least one of their traditional privileges, that of submitting statements based on hearsay evidence. This seems to have been a valuable privi­ lege in prior periods, in regard to both remonstrating and impeaching. The Hung-wu Emperor once demoted a censor for criticizing an official on the basis of what he had “heard in the streets.”48 Later emperors repeatedly rebuked censorial officials for “making vexatious demands based on rumor.”46 In a nostalgic manner, Ming officials sometimes reminded emperors of this lost privilege of protecting their sources of information, but in vain.47 That many censorial—and other—officials of the Ming dynasty never­ theless withstood emperors to their faces in the best Confucian manner testifies to the vitality of the tradition. The Ming dynasty, as a matter of fact, had a disproportionately large number of China’s most famous remonstrators, perhaps because Ming remonstrators were so likely to be martyred. Censorial duty was very hazardous duty. “Of all the inner and outer offices,” one Ming source testifies, “none is more difficult than that of the censorial personnel; moreover, none is more dangerous than that of the censorial personnel.”48 The fifteenth-century censor Li Shihmien may have survived (barely) after rebuking the Hung-hsi Emperor (1424-25) for consorting with concubines during the prescribed period of mourning for his father.49 And the early-sixteenth-century censor Chang Ch’in may have gone unpunished when, by bolting a frontier gate and guarding it with a sword brandished before the Emperor’s astonished outriders, he prevented the Cheng-te Emperor (1505-21) and all his entourage from touring beyond the Great Wall.50 But the historical record generally is a sad one for Ming remonstrators. The tide of remonstrance advanced and receded in accordance with the personalities of the emperors—or of those who dominated the em­ perors. During the decade 1424-35, when the liberal and tolerant Hung-hsi and Hsüan-te Emperors reigned, there was very little remon­ strance, apparently because there seemed little need for it. The six­ teenth century saw a notable increase, and by the 1620’s the “True Records” give the impression that censorial officials did little else but remonstrate. This rising tide was a censorial response to challenges posed by particular emperors: the Cheng-te Emperor (1505-21), the Chia-ching Emperor ( 1521-67), the Wan-li Emperor ( 1572-1620), and especially the Tien-ch’i Emperor (1620-27). The Cheng-te Emperor was a frustrated bravo. He loved gaiety and

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adventure, and he often wandered about the capital in disguise, seeking thrills. M ilitary adventures pleased him especially; he staged special campaigns for no purpose other than to give himself the thrill of field leadership. In consequence of fancied victories, he then conferred upon himself ever more distinguished military titles: for example, the Chenkuo Duke, Grand Defender, Controller of the Troops, August M artial Generalissimo, Supreme Commander of All Military Affairs (all one title). Court ministers often protested against his inanities, which were both wasteful and undignified. In 1519, on the eve of a grand “cam­ paign” in South China, censorial officials led a host of ministers in vigorous remonstrance. As a result at least 33 officials were imprisoned, 107 were forced to prostrate themselves in ranks outside the palace gate for five days, and 146 men (w ith some duplications) were subjected to floggings in open court, of which eleven men died.51 The Cheng-te Emperor had no son, and a cousin succeeded him as the Chia-ching Emperor in 1521. A great ceremonial dispute immedi­ ately arose. It originated in the new emperor’s wish to honor his natural father in sacrificial worship with the title “imperial father.” Censorial officials and others objected, insisting that the Emperor recognize his actual uncle, the Hung-chih Emperor ( 1487-1505), as “imperial father” and relegate his own father to the status of uncle for the purpose of imperial sacrifices. The controversy lasted for several years, becoming almost impossibly confusing in a welter of proposals, counterproposals, and compromises. Court ministers, with censorial officials consistently in the vanguard, submitted remonstrances wholesale: 31 men at a time, 64 at a time, more than 100 at a time, 32 at a time, etc. At one point 220 officials went en masse to chant remonstrances outside the palace, pound noisily on its gates, and prostrate themselves weeping and wail­ ing at the entrance, all in protest against a new proposal by the Emperor. The record shows that 134 of the remonstrators were promptly impris­ oned, that a large number of others were flogged in open court, that some were dismissed from service, and that others were exiled to frontier guard duty as common soldiers. At least nineteen men are reported to have died of their punishments.62 The long reign of the Wan-li Emperor was marked by numerous controversies in which groups of officials for the most part attacked other officials rather than the Emperor himself. But the Emperor’s intolerance of remonstrance provoked one great court storm compar­ able to those just described. This was a controversy over what was called “the root of the state.” The Emperor did not have a son by his empress but had several sons by concubines. When the two eldest sons were still children, censorial and other officials began insisting that the

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Emperor nominate the elder as heir apparent so as to make secure “the root of the state”—that is, the imperial succession. The Emperor refused. The resulting battle of wills between the Emperor and the officialdom lasted from 1586 until 1601, when the Emperor at last gave in. In the meantime dozens of officials had been degraded or banished for their temerity in remonstrating, and foundations had been laid for the bitter court factionalism that was to disrupt the Emperor’s remaining years.68 The T’ien-chÏ era was characterized by almost incessant remon­ strance. The Tien-chÏ Emperor was indecisive and indolent and came increasingly to be dominated in all things by flattering, self-seeking palace intimates—especially an ambitious wet-nurse named Madame K’o and the most powerful eunuch of all Chinese history, Wei Chung-hsien. Palace intrigues were viewed with special alarm because China was just then being threatened seriously by the Manchus and because popular rebellions were becoming a serious domestic problem. Censors and supervising secretaries submitted remonstrances almost daily warning the Emperor against eunuch influence, and finally Wei Chung-hsien in 1624-26 conducted a great purge of the administration designed to quell all such opposition. Hundreds of officials lost their posts or were other­ wise punished; fourteen ringleaders of the remonstrators lost their lives.64 Eight of these were censors, and two were supervising secre­ taries. One list of 319 men who were punished one way or another for opposing Wei Chung-hsien includes a total of 76 censorial officials (censors and supervising secretaries combined)—more men than were listed in any of seven other categories.66 Such “remonstrance disasters” as these reveal that Ming censorial officials unquestionably did remonstrate forthrightly at great cost to themselves. Innumerable examples of individual remonstrators could be added. As regards the fact of upright remonstrance, consequently, there can be no doubt about the influence of the classical Confucian ideal. But it is equally clear that, in some of these cases and in others not yet discussed, Confucian-style remonstrance served ends that were consonant only with Legalist principles and, furthermore, was carried out in a distinctively Legalist manner. It is particularly noteworthy that two of the great remonstrance controversies had to do with problems of imperial succession. I cannot pretend to understand all the subtle nuances of the “Great Ceremonial Debate” provoked by the Chia-ching Emperor. Shorn of its less impor­ tant ramifications, however, the controversy pitted the Emperor and a few advisers (denounced as sycophants by Confucian-minded histo­ rians) against the mass of the officialdom over a problem in the pe­ culiarly Confucian sphere of filial piety. The remarkable thing is that

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the officials gave precedence to the imperial succession over natural succession—that is, they insisted that the Emperor owed greater honor to his imperial predecessor than to his own father. That the debate took place at all reflects a Confucian penchant among the officials for moral­ istic problems which old-time Legalists would have considered trivial. But what the officials argued for seems to reflect Legalist conceptions of kingship and the state and is not consonant with classical Confucian­ ism’s conception of filial duty. The case of the “root of the state” reflects the Ming entanglement of Legalist and classical Confucian ideas even more markedly. The Wan-li Emperor, whatever his actual motivations, took the seemingly Confucian stand that he would not designate an heir apparent until his sons had matured sufficiently to enable him to evaluate their potentiali­ ties. Against this, die officials consistently advocated compliance with “the laws of the dynastic founders,” which they understood to require early recognition of the eldest imperial son as heir apparent. I have not observed any appeal in the officials’ arguments to what is right or wise in moral terms; they merely invoked, in Legalist-sounding fashion, the sanction of law. The fact that the law involved here was the household law or precedents of the Ming emperors permits the rationalization that the officials were being Confucian in oudook after all, by urging the Emperor to show filial respect for the wishes of his ancestors. However, the officials’ insistence that the imperial succession was the “root of the state” clearly violates a cardinal Confucian maxim, that the root of the state is the people. The censorial attack on the eunuch Wei Chung-hsien during the 1620’s culminated Ming officials’ many warnings against eunuch influ­ ence. Eunuchs had contributed to the ruin of earlier dynasties, notably the Han and the T ang; and the tyrannical Hung-wu Emperor had been clear-sighted enough to insist that palace eunuchs be limited in num­ bers and restrained from administrative activities. But his successors did not comply with these particular “laws of the dynastic founders,” and authority repeatedly fell into eunuch hands. Historians agree that eunuch influence was significantly facilitated by the establishment in 1429 of a palace school for eunuchs. This violated the Hung-wu Em­ peror’s doctrine that eunuchs should be kept illiterate, and it made pos­ sible the extensive eunuch interference in administration that marked the whole last half of the Ming era. So far as I can ascertain, no official protested against the establishment of the school. Perhaps officials at this time put their trust in the Confucian doctrine that education brings moral improvement. But as the eunuchs’ influence on government in­ creased, the officials did increasingly protest against it. They accused

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individual eunuchs of personal immorality, and they objected on moral grounds to many of the things eunuchs did. In general remonstrances against eunuch influence, however, they seldom relied on Confucian arguments—for example, that eunuchs, being by their nature the most unprincipled, subservient, and self-seeking of state employees, could be expected to exploit the people mercilessly rather than provide moral examples for them. Instead, they relied on the Legalist arguments that had been so well understood by the Hung-wu Emperor. They argued that eunuchs by their nature tended to usurp imperial authority and hence endangered the dynasty (as distinct from the people).64 “They ought altogether to be kept at a distance, not being permitted to get control of affairs,” one early official warned. “The events of Han and T ang provide clear warnings.”67 The seventeenth-century denuncia­ tions of Wei Chung-hsien were in the same vein. His immorality was denounced, true; but the argument relied on most heavily was that he had usurped imperial authority.68 Similar Legalist-sounding arguments can be found, intermixed with Confucian-sounding ones, in the proposals for new policies and for more effective implementing of existing policies with which censorial officials deluged the throne throughout the Ming period. Many censorial proposals, as well as direct remonstrances, reveal a genuinely Confucian concern for the popular well-being. Censorial of­ ficials, for one thing, often urged tax remissions for the people in areas where there had been natural disasters.69 In the 1620s, when defense needs brought about general tax increases, censorial pressure for reduc­ tions and remissions became intense. The Tien-ch’i Emperor responded that the censors and supervising secretaries—like the Confucian-minded scholars of 81 b .c . in the view of the Han ministers—were unrealistic and refused to recognize the practical problems of national defense. And the Emperor was similarly unimpressed by censorial suggestions that new financial needs be met, not by new taxes imposed on the people, but by palace economies.60 The treatm ent of prisoners was another subject that consistently aroused censorial officials to plead for humaneness in accordance with the Confucian tradition. They objected to the use of such torture in­ struments as the infamous cangue, and they repeatedly asked for medi­ cal assistance to sick prisoners.41 But Legalist attitudes were also regularly manifested in censorial proposals. They consistently appeared, for example, in proposals about national defense. The Tien-ch’i Emperor may have thought his officials were impractical in this regard, but the “True Records” show that cen­ sors and supervising secretaries were in fact staunch champions of mili-

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tary preparedness—not only preparedness against outside invasion b ut preparedness against domestic rebellions. The old Confucian doctrine that moral virtue triumphs over force had apparently been completely discarded; not a single censorial proposal that I have encountered is based even indirectly on this doctrine. Instead, the censorial officials repeatedly urged that public order be forcibly maintained and the dynasty preserved. Though they generally seemed to believe that these ends could be achieved without increasing the people’s burdens, as we have just seen, they adamantly demanded more defense funds, more effective recruitm ent and training, more effective checks against troop desertions, and so on. One censor in 1622 even proposed that taxes be specially increased to provide for an empire-wide local militia system, a proposal that is reported to have delighted the Emperor.62 Even as early as the 1420’s and 1430’s, when there was no significant outside threat to China and there was a notably high level of domestic contentment, censorial officials nevertheless were constantly harping on m ilitary preparedness and the possibility of domestic rebellion. Though much “banditry” could be attributed to popular distress and hence, according to Han Confucianism, interpreted as manifestations of Heaven’s displeasure with the government, the censors and supervis­ ing secretaries generally advocated severely repressive policies. In 1428, for example, a censor-in-chief subm itted the following proposal: For the capture of fierce bandits there already are rules about promotions and rewards, but the law for catching bandits should emphasize severity. If it is severe, then men will not dare to become bandits and the catchers on their part will entirely exhaust their strength. Henceforth, whenever fierce bandits plunder and pillage an area, officials and lesser functionaries of the guards and civil offices and also the village and neighborhood chiefs should all be sent out to serve as soldiers so that captures might be effected. If they make captures within two months they will escape punishment, but if they have failed to do so when the time limit has expired, then, in accordance with the rules, they should be turned over for punishment. Moreover, when fierce bandits have been captured they should be asked during trial to identify the guards or battalions or subprefectures or counties in which they were formerly regis­ tered. If they had been soldiers, then those in charge of the appropriate troops should be punished. If they had been civilians, then the appropriate civil officials, lesser functionaries, village elders, and neighborhood chiefs should be punished. If this is done then men will know what to dread.63

The proposal shows an obvious correlation with the Legalist doctrine of h a n d lin g men by rewards and, especially, punishments; and of meting out punishments rigorously according to fixed principles of group re­ sponsibility. Another sphere in which Ming censorial officials showed a Legalist bias is that of administrative procedures. In general, the extreme sys-

tematization of procedures and the inflexible, objective standards of per* formance that characterize the Legalist doctrines were consistently ad­ vocated by Ming censors and supervising secretaries. Again and again we find them proposing elaborate procedural rules to be imposed on the officialdom64—understandably enough, since such rules (together with the objective evaluation techniques they would give rise to) would im­ mensely simplify their own job of denouncing wrongdoing. This is per­ haps one of the most obvious instances of the prevalence of Legalist-like attitudes in the bureaucracy. The result of the Confucian-Legalist mixture that thus dominated censorial thinking was often a proposal to obtain ends sanctified by classical Confucianism by means advocated in Legalism. In 1624, for example, the censor-in-chief Kao Fan-lung proposed detailed regula­ tions about local government that were prefaced with these remarks: . . . If the subprefectures and counties are worthily administered, dien die people are contented. If not, then the people are not contented. However, the empire includes 221 subprefectures and 1,166 counties. How is it possible in all cases to obtain those who are worthy of employment? Those who are worthy regard the ruler as Heaven, which cannot be deceived, and regard the people as their sons, who cannot be injured. Their observance of the law and performance of duty proceed from the fact that what the mind cannot endure is not done. Lesser men, being given something to admire, are stimulated to do good; being given something to dread, they do not dare do what is not good. But totally inferior men do not know what their duties are or what the regulations are; they merely give rein to their desires. This is preying on the people. Therefore, in governing, one should select those who are worthy and talented, get rid of those who prey on the people, and restrain mediocre men.

Mediocre men are the most numerous in the empire. They should be restrained by laws, which do no harm to the worthy. Thus the prefect restrains the sub­ prefectures and counties; the circuit intendants restrain the prefectures; and the governor and regional inspector restrain all without exception. These re­ straints cause everyone to observe the law, as in the case of farmlands having dividing lines which no one thinks to overstep. Then the empire is well governed!65

Kao’s emphasis on the contentment of the people, and a large proportion of the terminology he employs, reflect classical Confucian ideals. But his assumption that the masses of people are amoral and must be re­ strained by laws so that they “do not dare do what is not good” is alto­ gether Legalist. The same Legalist cynicism was dominant, in a different context, in a suggestion by the early-sixteenth-century supervising secretary Liu Ch’ih. When sweeping staff changes were being considered, Liu advised the Cheng-te Emperor to retain old hands in top-level administrative posts rather than bring in new blood. He did not argue that the exist­ ing executives were virtuous or that their experience was valuable. He

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merely suggested, curtly and cynically, that “it is better to keep a sated tiger than a hungry one”66—an apt maxim for any Legalist-minded em­ ployer of men, but hardly the voice of Confucian idealism. CONCLUSION

China’s traditional censorial institution has been extravagantly praised and extravagantly criticized. Some authorities have considered it an instrument of monarchical control over the bureaucracy, whereas others have considered it an instrum ent of bureaucratic control over the monarch. These conflicting evaluations naturally derive from the fact that the censorial system—like Imperial Confucianism as a whole— was based on discordant ideological premises. It was not the idealized creation of either Confucius or Kung-sun Yang; it was a complex of inherited practices that were influenced by both. From one point of view it was a Confucian institution, and from another it was a Legalist institution. The individual censorial official was representative of the whole body of traditional Chinese bureaucrats in that, as an Imperial Confucianist, he was neither a genuine classical Confucian nor a genuine Legalist in outlook. His was not an either-or situation. His impeachment function stemmed from Legalist roots, but his manner of exercising it drew heavily on classical Confucianism. Conversely, his remonstrance function was primarily Confucian in origin, but his manner of remonstrating was often consonant with pure Legalism. We can do no more than speculate about his actual motivations. Students of Ming documents are easily tem pted to conclude that Ming censorial officials—and Ming bureaucrats in general—were in fact principally Legalist-minded in their motivations. The abject servility that characterized ministerial statements to the throne in this period is very striking. Not only were they filled with excessively humble termi­ nology; they consistently attributed to the emperor—the “ruler-father” in their words—wisdom, goodness, and all other admirable qualities. However pointed the criticism, it was always sheathed in implications that the emperor, though wise and good, had been misled and deceived by unscrupulous attendants or advisers. However degenerate the em­ peror, he was always pictured in official documents as a paragon of virtue whose gracious benefits no minister could ever wholly requite. Thus, in practice, Ming ministers perfectly exemplified Han Fei’s Legal­ ist maxim that “the business of the persuader is to embellish the pride and obliterate the shame of the persuaded,” and their servile expressions implied complete acceptance of the Legalist concept of ruler-subject relations. Given the circumstances, these expressions of Legalist import could

perhaps be dismissed as insincere conventions—as tactical devices em­ ployed by ministers with tongue in cheek because they could not be avoided. The evidence strongly suggests, however, that most of these protestations of abject devotion were perfectly sincere. Consider, for example, the case of the censor Tso Kuang-tou, who saw service under three emperors and was finally tortured to death in prison in 1625 at the instigation of the eunuch Wei Chung-hsien and by order of the Tiench’i Emperor. After weeks of almost daily torture, on the point of death and apparently without any hope for his own survival or for his family's escape from ruin, he scribbled a series of private notes to his sons that include these statements: At this moment my pain and distress are extreme; I can no longer even walk a step. In the middle of the night the pain gets still worse. If I want water to drink, none is at hand. Death! Death! Only thus can I make recompense to the Emperor and to the two imperial ancestors. . . . The bones of my whole body are broken, and my flesh is bloodlogged. . . . This loyal heart came to be at odds with powerful villains and brought about this sore calamity. All sorts of punishments I have willingly endured. Since I have already argued at the risk of my life, why need I shrink from running against the spear and dying? My body belongs to my ruler-father. I am lucky I shall not die in the arms of my wife and children; for I have found the proper place to die! I only regret that this blood-filled heart has not been able to make recompense to my ruler, and that my aged parents cannot once again see my face. This will be my remorse in Hades! . . . My misery is extreme; my pain is ex­ treme. Why do I live on? Why do I cling to life? Death! Only thus can I make recompense to the Emperor and to the two imperial ancestors in Heaven.*7

In the circumstances, hypocrisy is almost inconceivable. The ruler-minister relationship envisioned by Confucius and Men­ cius had clearly succumbed; Tso’s abject protestations of devotion to the throne are the badge of the Legalist sycophant. Paradoxically enough, however, any early Legalist would have repudiated Tso instantly, whereas Confucius would undoubtedly have acknowledged kinship with him. For Tso—and Ming ministers generally—did not mouth these phrases opportunistically. They believed them. And the capacity for selfless commitment that this implies is peculiarly Confucian and utterly foreign to the ideal minister in the Legalist conception. Perhaps it is primarily in this sense that Imperial Confucianists re­ mained Confucians at heart after all.

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CONFUCIAN ELEMENTS IN THE THEORY OF PAINTING

yr yr

James J*. Cahill

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In most modem studies of Chinese painting, there has been a curious lack of reference to Confucian thought as a force in the crea­ tion of art and in the formulation of art theory. Such infrequent men­ tions of it as one encounters tend to be brief and unsympathetic. For Confucianism is reserved the doctrine that painting, by depicting ex­ emplary themes, can serve as a didactic tool or a moralizing influence; all those views which involve the communication of intuitive knowledge, the operation of an aesthetic sense, or the embodiment of individual feel­ ing are attributed to the working of Taoist and Buddhist ideas and atti­ tudes. Similarly in m atters of style: it is sometimes suggested that the Confucian temperament, when it found graphic expression, produced a dry academicism, while Taoism and Ch’an Buddhism fostered the more spontaneous, "untrammeled” styles. The neglect and distortion of the role of Confucianism in the arts probably results in part from an extension into aesthetics of the unfor­ tunately widespread view of the Confucian tradition as “inherently re­ actionary and sterile . . . in the political and social sphere,”1 or from a supposition that its rationalist bent denied it any place in w hat are es­ sentially non-rational processes, the production and appreciation of works of art. In addition, the more immediate appeal of Taoism and Buddhism—especially Ch’an Buddhism—to the modern W estern mind has led to a concentration of attention upon Taoist and Buddhist ele­ ments in art as in other areas of Chinese culture. Added to these causes is the profound and protracted im pact of one school of Japanese arthistorical scholarship, itself strongly influenced by Zen Buddhist atti­ tudes and tea-cult aesthetic, upon pioneer W estern studies of Chinese art. Fenollosa, seeing the Chinese through Japanese eyes, announced that “a very large part of the finest thought and standards of living that have gone into Chinese life, and die finest part of what has issued there­ from in literature and art, have been strongly tinged with Buddhism.”9 Arthur Waley, at an early and still somewhat incautious stage in his

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distinguished career as an Orientalist, revealed a similar dependence on Japanese attitudes when he wrote: M it is in the language of Zen that, after the twelfth century, art is usually discussed in China and Japan.”* We must assume that Waley had not yet acquainted himself with Sung and later Chinese art literature when he made this statement; because to have made it after having done so would be quite impossible. The lack of any sound basis in Chinese art theory for such pronounce­ ments has not diminished their effect on Occidental thinking. The fact that the great majority of painters who were philosophically committed at all (at least of those whose broader beliefs can be ascertained), and the majority of poets and calligraphers as well, were Confucian scholars, is unnoticed or ignored; or else it is supposed that when these scholars wrote and painted, they were somehow transformed into Taoists and Buddhists, and that when they thought and theorized about art, they renounced their basic beliefs and turned to the rival systems for guid­ ance. Joseph Levenson, for example, considering the Ming dynasty devel­ opment of wen-jen hua, “literati painting” or painting done by scholaramateurs, asks: “How could Ming Confucian intellectuals . . . reject the theory of painting which they associated with learning, and prize instead an anti-intellectual theory of mystical abstraction from civilized concerns? One might expect that Confucian traditionalists . . . would feel an affinity with an academic northern aesthetic and oppose the southern Ch’an . . . Levenson s association of wen-jen hua theory with Ch’an ideals seems to be based chiefly on the famous analogy drawn by Tung Ch’i-ch’ang (1555-1636), a leading late Ming spokes­ man for the literati painting movement, between the “northern and southern schools” of painting and the two branches of Ch’an. But the main outlines of wen-jen hua theory had been established some five centuries before Tung’s time; and his analogy does not, in any event, require any close connection between literati painting and Ch’an.s A characterization of literati painting by Alexander Soper may serve to represent another class of statements about painting of this school, which suppose it to have affinities with Taoism: “The ’literary man’s style* of painting became the implacable enemy of the Academy and all its ways, the enemy of all organization, training, and planning; almost the exponent in art of a free, untrammeled Taoism, protesting against Confucian punctiliousness and formality.”* Among the relatively few contributions toward a more correct as­ sessment of the influence of Confucian thought on art is the writing of Victoria Contag, who has sought to relate the Chinese artists’ modes of representing a “second reality,” especially within the literati painting

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school, to Neo-Confucian theories of knowledge.7 Stimulating and con­ vincing as I find her arguments, I do not intend here to follow her ex­ ample and move between philosophy and painting proper. I shall in­ stead confine myself to die exploration of possible instances of depend­ ence upon Confucian ideas, not in the practice of painting but in the theory of it. I shall be concerned especially with the Sung dynasty wenjen hua theorists* treatm ent of two problems: the function of painting, and the nature of expression in painting. But we must give some pre­ liminary consideration to the ways in which these same problems were dealt with before the emergence of wen-jen hua theory, and to some Chinese notions about the other arts. In doing so, we shall begin to work toward a definition of w hat is specifically Confucian in Chinese art theory and criticism. It is not easy to determine w hat views of painting prevailed during the Han and Six Dynasties periods, since so litde writing on the subject has survived from these periods, and so litde of that is pertinent to the broad questions proposed above. The earliest references to painting in extant literature seem to assign to it three main functions: the illustra­ tive, the magical, and the moral. The first two, which are not of much concern to us here, since they play no im portant part in the later theoriz­ ing, may be illustrated with quotations from the Lun Heng by Wang Ch’ung ( second century a .d . ) : Popular legends, though not true, are impressively portrayed, and by diese artistic representations, even wise and intelligent men are taken in. By making pictures of dragons the duke of She succeeded in bringing down a real dragon. The district magistrates of our time are in the habit of having peach-trees cut down and carved into human statues, which they place by the gate, and they paint the shapes of tigers on the door screens . . . These carvings and paintings of images are intended to ward off evil influences.8

Chang Yen-yiian, ninth-century author of Li-tai Ming-hua Chi (“Record of Famous Painters of Successive Dynasties”), draws upon Han dynasty and later sources in presenting the third, die moralistic view of p a in tin g . H e cites the portraits of eminent and virtuous men which were painted on the walls of die Cloud Terrace and Unicom Pavilion in the H an dynasty, and comments: “For to see the good serves to warn against evil, and the sight of evil serves to make men long for wisdom.” H e quotes die words of Ts’ao Chih ( 192-232) describing how people seeing pictures of noble rulers Took up in reverence,” while those who see p a in tin g s of degenerate rulers are “moved to sadness.”

Chang concludes: “From this we may know that p a in tin g s are the means by which events are preserved in a state in which they serve as models [for the virtuous] and warnings [to the evil].”* The narrowness of these views of painting, and the probable reason for their early abandonment, lies in their failure to make any allowance for aesthetic value; a picture was successful to the degree that its subject was well chosen and convincingly portrayed. The often quoted remark of Han Fei-tzu, that "dogs and horses are difficult [to paint] and demons and divinities easy . . . because dogs and horses are things generally and commonly seen,” whereas no one can reasonably dispute the paint­ er’s portrayal of demons,10 implies such an absence of aesthetic criteria: exempt from criticism based on the verisimilitude of his picture, the painter of imaginary subjects should find his task "easy,” since no other standard of judgment is to be applied to his work. But there was no denying the wide variations in both style and ar­ tistic quality between one picture and another, variations for which these concepts of painting were helpless to account. One can imagine the perplexity of the Han dynasty Confucian scholar who happened to be endowed with an aesthetic sense, and found himself preferring a good picture of an unelevating subject to a bad one with a noble theme. Mo­ rality and art: what is the relationship between the two, and how are they to be reconciled? A problem which could not but concern the ethically-minded Confucianists, and which, in various later periods, was to trouble them in its relation to literature. Han Yü ( 768-824), who was "far more concerned with content than with elegance of language,”11 was nonetheless suspected by the severe Chou Tun-i, an eleventh cen­ tury Neo-Confucianist, of being too interested in style, not enough in doctrine. “Literary style is a m atter of art,” writes Chou, “whereas morals and virtue [tao-te] are the matters of real substance. If one is sincere about these substantial matters and uses art, then the beauty of ones writing will be loved; loved, it will be transmitted.” Style for Chou Tun-i was only an ornament to ethical and moral content which made this content easier to assimilate; for him, "literature is the vehicle of Tao.”12 Some such means of justifying the elements of style and beauty in painting may have occurred to the Han dynasty scholars; the literature of the time gives us no clue. W hether or not because of this inherent weakness, the notion that painting derives moral value from moral subject matter was fairly short­ lived. By the time of Chang Yen-yiian, as we shall see when we come to consider Chang’s own ideas (as distinct from those which he quotes or alludes to ), it was invoked from the past in a somewhat ceremonious manner, but practically ignored in actual judgments of painters and

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paintings. Therefore, to offer tins view of painting as if it were the sole contribution of Confucianism to painting theory, as some writers have done, is quite misleading. We can only say that it appears to have been tiie dominant Confucian view in the Han dynasty; w hat later Confucians thought about painting is w hat we shall try to determine later in this paper. It is in the succeeding Six Dynasties period that serious discussions of painting are first composed, and new theories put forth which seek to enlarge the function of painting beyond that of simple representation. In the small corpus of critical and theoretical writing on the subject which survives from this period, we may distinguish two more or less distinct (although overlapping and not contradictory) notions about tiie nature and purpose of the art. The first conceived of painting as the creation of images, symbolic abstractions of natural form and phenomena, analogous to the hexa­ grams of the I-ching (“Book of Changes”) or to the graphs of the writ­ ten language. A fifth century artist, W ang Wei, begins his essay on landscape painting by quoting a letter from his contemporary, Yen Yenchih, who states that painting “is not to be practiced and accomplished merely as a craft; it should be regarded as of the same order as the images of the Changes.”1* Seen in this way, painting becomes a means of understanding and interpreting natural phenomena. The other, historically more im portant view of painting in the Six Dynasties regarded it as the embodiment of the artist’s feeling toward the thing depicted; the painter imbues his pictures of natural objects or scenes with some expression of his emotional responses to what he sees. If he is successful, the person who sees his picture will respond to it in a like way. The essay on landscape painting by Tsung Ping, a contempo­ rary of the fifth-century W ang Wei quoted above, opens with a state­ ment, typical for the period, of the ideal man’s response to nature: “The sage, harboring the Tao, responds to external objects; the wise man, purifying his emotions, savors the images of things.” Further on in his essay, Tsung explains the application of this response to painting: “Now, if one who considers the right principle to be response to his eyes and accord w ith his heart perfects his skill in keeping with this principle, then all eyes will respond to, and all hearts be in accord with [his paint­ ings].”14 Although these two concepts are here treated as separate, they need not be. The one operation could, of course, serve as a means of accom­ plishing the other; the artist m ight embody his personal vision of the world and his understanding of it in his mode of transforming visual impressions into “images.” But there was an element of Taoist mysticism

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as well, and perhaps of even older Chinese beliefe, involved in this notion of "response.” The objects of nature, whether or not animate in the usual sense, were considered to be animated by spirit, or "souls’* (shen). The human soul responds to these in a spiritual accord (shenhut), which is the source of the sensitive m ans profound feeling toward nature—or, if these "souls” have been captured by an equally sensitive artist, toward a picture of nature. The closest philosophical affinities of both the above-mentioned theories seem to be with the school of Neo-Taoism, the strongest cur­ rent of thought in this period. The view of paintings as abstractions of visual impressions into "images,” symbolizing the configurations of the physical world, has its roots in the cosmological speculations of the Neo-Taoist school, and especially in its theory of the creation and significance of images.19 The other view, that which sees painting as the embodiment of the artist s feeling toward his subject, is based upon what Fung Yu-lan terms the "sentimentalist” branch of the school,1* wherein a deliberate savoring of physical sensations, and an intensifica­ tion and refinement of ones emotional responses to them, overcame for a time the old warnings against attachment to sensible objects. That romantic movement whose adherents figure in the anecdotes of the Shih-shuo Hsin-yii seems also to have given rise to the earliest painting of natural scenery for its own sake in China, and to the belief that paint­ ing can serve as a substitute for that scenery by evoking the same feel­ ings which the actual scene would evoke. Something which corresponds to this latter view appears in literary theory of the time. The early-sixth-century Wen-hsin Tiao-lung, for example, describes how the poet is deeply moved by the changing as­ pects of the world, and continues: “And so the poet’s response to things starts up an endless chain of associations; he lingers among myriad images, immerses himself in sights and sounds. He captures in words the spirit of things, depicts their appearance,” calling forth a corre­ sponding response in the reader of his poem.17 It is interesting to see how these ideas fared, and what others arose, in the T ang dynasty, when Confucianism regained its dominance in government and society and the leading writers were Confucian schol­ ars. The most important T ang treatise on painting, Chang Yen-yiian’s Li-tai Ming-hua chi opens with a fanfare of high-sounding generalities, meant to impress upon the reader the metaphysical and moral value of the art of painting: Now painting is a thing which accomplishes the purpose of civilizing teach­ ing and helps to maintain the social relationships. It penetrates completely

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the divine permutations of Nature and fathoms recondite and subtle things. Its merit is equal to that of any of the Six Arts of antiquity and it moves side by side with the Four Seasons. It proceeds from Nature itself and not from human invention.18 This introduction includes, as we have seen, a formal exposition of the moralistic, “elevated subject-matter” view of p a in tin g , with quota­ tions from early writings. One might be tem pted to concentrate upon this introduction, with all its echoes of Confucian ethical doctrine, in seeking to characterize the Confucian tone of Chang’s book. But to do so would be a mistake, I think; for there is little indication in the rest of the book that Chang himself took very seriously the ideas he presents in his introduction. William Acker, who translated the first portion of the book, along with two earlier critical texts, says of such conventional references as Chang’s: “Fainting must be fitted into the Confucian scheme of the universe, and its uses demonstrated in terms of traditional Chinese thought.19 Having discharged their responsibilities as Confucians in their prefatory remarks, he suggests, the critics go on to discuss individual painters and their works in quite different terms. They express admiration for vigorous or elegant brushwork, for noble conceptions, for brilliant stylistic innovations. W hat is significantly absent from Chang Yen-yiian’s own opinions, as they are stated or reflected in the main body of his book, is any re­ flection of that Six Dynasties view described above according to which a painting conveys die emotional response of the artist to the depicted object. In his treatm ent of the Sui dynasty painter Chan Tzu-ch'ien, Chang quotes the opinion of an early T’ang Buddhist monk, which in­ cludes the phrase ch’u-wu liu-cKing, “Aroused by things of the world he consigned his emotions to them”—that is, embodied his feelings about them in pictures of them.20 But nowhere does Chang himself adopt this theory of expression. A possible reason for Chang’s rejection of it, I think, is that its implications of attachment to material objects made it unacceptable to the Confucian literatus. This possibility will be further considered below. There are scattered indications in Li-tai Ming-hua Chi that Chang, dissatisfied both with the Six Dynasties view of painting (w ith its over­ tones of Taoist mysticism) and with the older Confucian view which attached moral value to paintings by virtue of the subjects they por­ trayed, was working toward a new concept by which a Confucian hu­ manist approach could be applied to his judgments of artistic quality, a concept which would also be in harmony with traditional Confucian at­ titudes toward the other arts. H e begins to touch on the relationship between the artist and his work. “From ancient times,” he writes, “those

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who have excelled in painting have all been men robed and capped and of noble descent, retired scholars and lofty-minded men . . .”21 Two centuries later, this same observation was to be made to support one of the basic tenets of wen-jen hua theory. Nobility in a painting, the literati theorists were to insist, can only be a reflection of nobility in the man; die man is revealed in his works. Chang Yen-yiian’s comments on die landscapist Yang Yen (late eighth century) contain the earliest state­ ment I know in the painting literature of this notion of "seeing the man in his works”: He was polished and elegant in his bearing, vigorous and energetic in his spirit and feeling. He was good at landscapes; his works were lofty and unusual, refined and strong . . . When I look at the late Mr. Yang’s land­ scape pictures, I see in imagination what he was as a man—his imposing stature and unconventionality.22 But Chang fails to develop the idea further. In another passage he takes up the fundamental Confucian problem of aesthetic quality vs. moral significance, making the same distinction between te (virtue) and i (art) as Chou Tun-i, quoted above, was to make for literature. He writes: I, Yen-yiian, consider that die classical statement, "the perfection of virtue is primary, and the perfection of art follows afterward”28 is a doctrine which disdains the man who has art but lacks virtue. But the princely man "follows the dictates of loving-kindness and seeks delight in the arts.”24 . . . Here, die Master esteems virtue and art equally. So, if someone lacks virtue but at least attains art, then even though he labor as hard as a menial servant, what cause is there for regret in this?28 From Chang’s remarks, we see that the problem of the relative im­ portance of “virtue” and “art,” in the artist, in the creative process, and in the finished work, was a persisting one. In fact, Chang drew this distinc­ tion from the Classics, where it was made for music and ceremonial; Chou Tun-i later drew upon the same source. But Chang, as a critic of painting, is faced with (and ignores) a problem with which Chou was not troubled: what is moral significance, “virtue,” in painting? Literature can state moral truths direcdy; painting cannot, except perhaps by its choice of subject; and as Acker remarks of the critics who make much of virtue, “there is no suggestion anywhere that they would have placed a bad portrait of Confucius above a good painting of an Imperial Con­ cubine, merely because of the former’s power to inspire emotions of reverence.”26 The wen-jen hua theorists of the Northern Sung period were to ar­ rive at a solution of this problem by fin d in g for painting a means other than descriptive by which it might communicate the ineffable thoughts.

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the transient feeling, the very nature, of an admirable man, and so contribute to the moral betterm ent of those who see it. Before going on to this development, however, I should like to consider the occurrence of related ideas in the theory of the other arts: music, literature, and calligraphy. The notion of art as communication, or as a revelation of the nature of the artist, appears earlier in other arts than it does in painting. Lit­ erature, as an extension of the basic verbal mode of expressing thought and feeling, is understandably the first to be treated in this way. In die Lun Heng we find the following observations: The I-ching says that die feelings of a sage appear from his utterances . . . When he has expressed himself in writing, his true feeling shines forth in all its splendour. The greater a man’s virtue, the more refined is his literary work.27 The sixth-century Shih T in says of the works of T ao Ch’ien (365427): “Whenever we look at his writings we see, in imagination, the virtue of the man.”28 And in the W en-hsin Tiao-lung, about the same period, we are told that “although the period of a w riter may be far re­ moved in time, so th at no one can see his face, yet if we look into his literary works, we seem immediately to see his mind.”2® In speaking of literature as a revelation of thought and feeling, the writers of the above passages were probably not referring only—or even primarily—to straightforward statem ent or description of particular ideas and emotions. W hat is implicitiy contained in a piece of writing, they felt, is likely to be more profound and meaningful than what is ex­ plicitly stated. In critical discussions of poetry and other literary forms, one finds frequent references to conceptions which “go beyond the lit­ eral meaning of the words.” From early times, it was recognized that direct prose discourse is not always adequate to convey all that the w riter might conceive and experience. The “G reat Commentary” ( Tachuan) to the I-ching says: “W riting cannot express words completely, and words c a n n o t express thought completely.”80 It goes on to advance the notion that images and symbols can be used to embody ideas too abstruse for verbal statement. One of the Neo-Confudan philosophers, the eleventh-century Hsieh Liang-tso, writes: The words of the sage are near and familiar, but his meaning is nonetheless far-reaching; for words have a limited capacity, while his meaning is inexhaust­ ible. The words, being limited, can be investigated through commentaries; but the meaning, being inexhaustible, must be grasped with the spirit. It is like becoming acquainted with a man: yesterday you knew only his face, today you know his mind.81

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The expression of what is either too subtle or too strong for direct verbal statement is one of the functions of art within die Confudan system. Both poetry (considered as a spontaneous outburst of song) and music are said to come forth when emotion becomes too intense and language, used in the ordinary way, will no longer suffice for its expres­ sion. The “Great Preface” (“Ta-hsii”) to the Skih-ching says: "The feel­ ings stir within one, and are embodied in speech. When speech is in­ sufficient, one sighs and exclaims diem. When sighs and exclamations are insufficient, one makes songs of them.”82 An almost identical statement is applied to music at the end of the “Record of Music” (“Yiieh-chi”) section of the Lt-chi.88 Chu Hsi ( 11301200), the leading figure in Neo-Confucianism, echoes this theory of poetry when he writes: Someone asked me, “Why is poetry composed?” I answered, “Man is bom in a state of tranquillity; that is his innate nature. He responds to things and is moved; that is the desire of his nature. Now, when he has such desire, he cannot be without thought, nor can he, when he thinks, be without speech. When he speaks, then what he cannot completely express in words comes out in sighing and singing; and this overflow always has a spontaneous music and rhythm, which the poet cannot restrain. This is why poems are made.”84 The only function of die ordinary man's expressions of emotion, presumably, is the one suggested by the passages above: catharsis, the discharging of feelings which, if pent up, might becloud the mind. When the superior man sets forth his feelings, however, another purpose is served, and one which gives art a moral value in the Confucian system. If the manifold facets of the mind, the character, the exemplary quali­ ties, of the superior man can be communicated in a work of art, then those qualities may be perceived by others and implanted in diem. The “Record of Music” presents this view at length, making such statements as “Music displays the virtue [of the composer]” and “When notes that are correct affect men, a corresponding correct spirit responds to them [from within].” The superior man, it says, “makes extensive use of music in order to perfect his instructions.”86 The continuation of the conversation quoted above from the writing of Chu Hsi contains a clear statement of this idea of art serving as “instruction” by embodying the superior man's responses: He dien asked, “If this is so, what is die value of poetry as instruction?” I answered, “Poetry is the product of man's response to external things, em­ bodied in words. Now, what the mind responds to may be either corrupt or correct; therefore, what is embodied in words may be either good or bad. But the sages above us respond only to what is correct, so that their words are all worthy of serving as instruction.”84

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Besides serving as “instruction,” the artistic creations of superior men also fulfill another Confucian desideratum, that of fostering a community of spirit and a continuity of basic values within the literati tradition. The scholar who comes to understand his predecessors by reading their literary works or savoring their calligraphy and painting comes also to feel a kinship with them; another dimension, an extension into the past, is added to his sense of communion with men of like mind. Mencius saw literature as a means of nourishing such feelings of affinity: The scholar whose virtue is most distinguished in the kingdom will make friends of all the other virtuous scholars of the kingdom. When the scholar feels that his friendship with all the virtuous scholars of the kingdom does not suffice, he proceeds to consider the men of antiquity. Reciting their poems, reading their writings, how can he help but come to know what they were as men?87 W ith the recognition of the long-established importance of these beliefs about the function of art, we begin to see why a new concept of painting was required in order that painting might attain a respectable status in the Confucian system. The weakness of the early moralist view which depended upon nobility of subject m atter (“to see the good serves to warn against evil”) was discerned already in the Han dynasty by W ang C hung: People like to see paintings. The subjects reproduced in these pictures are usually men of ancient times. But would it not be better to be informed of the doings and sayings of these men than to contemplate their faces? Painted upon a bare wall, their shapes and figures are there; the reason why they do not act as incentives, is that people do not perceive their words or deeds. The sentiments left by the old sages shine forth horn the bamboos and silks, where they are written, which means more than mere paintings on walls.38 Elsewhere he writes that “the doings and sayings of worthies and sages, handed down on bamboo and silk, transform the heart and en­ lighten the mind . . . ” His low opinion of painting was based on the failure of that art, as he saw it, to “transform” and “enlighten.” W en-jen hua theory overcomes this objection, as we shall see, with a new concept of the source of expression in painting, according to which the import of tiie picture is prim arily dependent not upon its subject, but upon the mind of its maker. To understand how it was possible to regard painting as capable of conveying human thought and feeling without depending upon the outward associations of its subject m atter, we may look a bit further into theories of the other arts. Although poetry and music are treated as intimately related in the early Chinese literature, the modes of ex-

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pression they depend upon differ in one fundamental way: in poetry, thought or emotion can be stated explicitly, although with an inevitable loss of nuance and often to the detriment of the poem as a work of art; whereas music can only symbolize it, suggest it, evoke it, always by non-descriptive, "abstract” means. However, a recognition of the in­ adequacy of direct verbal expression led die theorists to the view that purely formal means, dependence upon those artistic devices which distinguish the poem from the prose statement, were in some cases pref­ erable in literature as well, having an immediacy denied to intellectualized discourse and allowing the communication of intuitive truths which cannot be presented in rational terms. The theory of calligraphy is especially revealing in this connection, since the forms of calligraphy, like those of music, do not represent anything (the text written being more or less irrelevant to the work as calligraphy) and must rely on their inherent qualities without referring direcdy to anything in everday sensory experience. The earliest extant essay on calligraphy, die “Fei Ts’ao-shu” (“Polemic against the ‘Grass* [cursive] Script”) by Chao I of the late Han dynasty, already recog­ nizes calligraphy as revealing not only the skill but also die nature and character of the writer—a recognition which was not to be accorded to painting until much later: Now, of all men, each one has his particular humours and blood, and dif­ ferent sinews and bones. The mind may be coarse or fine, the hand may be skilled or clumsy. Hence when the beauty or ugliness of a piece of writing must depend both upon the mind and the hand, can there be any question of making [a beautiful writing] by sheer force of effort?89 By the Six Dynasties period, calligraphy was seen as a means of communicating the ineffable, functioning (as Wang Wei, in the same period, considered painting to function) in a symbolic way, as an ab­ straction of natural form, analogous to the hexagrams of the I-ching. Wei Heng, a Chin dynasty calligrapher, writes: “[The calligrapher] observes [and utilizes] the images of things to convey his thoughts; these are such as cannot be expressed in words.”40 T ang dynasty developments in the application of these ideas to cal­ ligraphy may be illustrated with quotations from two Confucian scholars of the period: Chang Huai-kuan, an eighth-century appointee to the Han-lin Academy; and the great littérateur and precursor of Neo-Confucianism Han Yii. Chang*s essay entitled “I Shu” (“Discourse on Callig­ raphy”) contains the following: Cliffs and canyons compete for breath-taking effect, mountains and rivers strive respectively for height and depth. One gathers, as in a bag, these myriad phenomena, brings them into order as a single image. This one

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lodges in calligraphy in order to give rein to one’s varied thought, or commits to calligraphy to release ones pent-up emotions. Calligraphy and written documents, if they are of the highest order, all have a profound import through which the intent of the writer is revealed. Look­ ing at them makes one understand him fully, as if meeting him face to face . . . Reading the words of the sages of the past is not the same as hearing them speak in person, but in appreciating the calligraphy of former masters, one can never exhaust their profound conceptions. Of the Chin dynasty calligrapher W ang Hsi-chih: When we look at his complete calligraphy, we lucidly perceive the spirit of his whole life, as if we were meeting him face to face.41

aim

and

In the first paragraph quoted above, we encounter for the first time die notion of “lodging,” which was later to occur frequentiy in literati discussions of painting. To speak of “lodging,” or embodying, ones thoughts and emotions in the work of art was a common way of de­ scribing the process of artistic expression. The final lines of W en-hsin Tiao-lung, for example, are: “If my writing indeed conveys my mind, then my mind finds lodging.” We shall encounter other uses of the term as we proceed, and its meaning will become more clear. Han Yü, believing with Chang Huai-kuan in the capacity of callig­ raphy to manifest human feelings, applies to this art the concept of catharsis, mentioned above as one of the Confucian justifications for artistic creation: by allowing the w riter to release his pent-up emotions, it forestalls the unseemly operation of those emotions in other directions, and so enables him to preserve his composure. For, as Hsiin-tzu had said about music, “Man cannot be without joy, and when there is joy, it must have a physical embodiment. W hen this embodiment does not conform to right principles, there will be disorder.”42 Calligraphy, as well as good music, was evidently thought to “conform to right princi­ ples.” H an Yü writes: If a man can give lodging to his skill and knowledge, so that they respond sensitively to his mind but without damming up his energy, then his spirit will be whole and his character will be firm. Although external things come [into his cognizance], they will not adhere to his mind. He then cites examples of people who have been fond of particular tilings or activities—food, wine, chess—and goes on: These things they enjoyed to the end of their days, insatiably. How could they have leisure for other desires? The late Chang Hsü was good at the grass script; he did not develop other talents. Joy and anger, distress and poverty, sorrow, contentment and ease, resentment, longing, intoxication, dejection and unrest—anything which moved his mind he inevitably expressed in his grass script. He looked at things, saw mountains and rivers, cliffs and valleys . . . all the-transmutations of events and objects in the world. The enjoyable, the awesome, all were given lodging in his calligraphy.43

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The idea of embodying individual response and emotion in music or calligraphy was acceptable to these Confudans; the embodiment of it in painting, through representation of the stimulus of that emotion, evidently was not. Other T ang dynasty Confucian writers, like Chang Yen-yiian, avoid presenting painting in such terms. I should like to suggest—and some quotations will be introduced below to support the suggestion—that the problem of non-attachment is involved here. Ex­ pressing emotion through the portrayal of whatever had inspired that emotion implied a dwelling on that thing, and on the state of mind it had evoked. Confucian writings cautioned, on the contrary, that one should allow one’s mind to rest only lightly upon the things it comes into contact with, never to become captivated by them; the mind must always preserve a degree of aloofness. Expression in music and callig­ raphy entailed no description or representation of the original stimulus of feeling; it was not a m atter of being moved by something one en­ countered and externalizing one’s response in a picture of, or a poem about, that thing. The images of a representational art remained bound to the object of representation. The forms of a non-representational art were not so bound, could be invested with a more general import, and so could serve to reveal the nature and thought of the person who com­ posed them. The case of painting was complicated by the ambivalence of its very substance, its lines, forms, colors, textures: they might portray material things, but might also serve as somewhat independent expressive means, undergoing quasi-arbitrary mutations which had little or nothing to do with their descriptive function. Literary evidence indicates that as early as the T ang dynasty, unorthodox kinds of brushwork which had previously been employed only in calligraphy were introduced into painting, not so much because they served better to reproduce the visi­ ble features of anything as for their inherent interest and their efficacy in displaying the temperament of the artist. This development in paint­ ing style evidently preceded, and perhaps to some extent stimulated, the emergence of the wen-jen hua concept Technical innovations in art are not, ordinarily, the work of its critics; the expressive potentiali­ ties of brush and ink had to be expanded in fact before they could be expanded in theory. A sh iftin g of emphasis from the subject of the picture to its formal elements was thus facilitated; and as this shift went on, painting and calligraphy drew closer to becoming, in principle, a single art.44 The way was opened for the evolution of wen-jen hua, and the recognition of p a in tin g , within the Confucian order, as a means by which the individ­ ual man could communicate to others the workings of his mind. Although anticipations of some features of wen-jen hua theory can

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be discovered in pre-Sung writings (e.g., in Chang Yen-yiian’s remarks about Yang Yen, quoted above), the formulation of this theory as a coherent body of doctrine did not take place until die late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. It was accomplished chiefly by members of a coterie of artists and critics, of which Su Shih, or Su Tung-p’o ( 10361101 ), was the central figure. Some of these men reveal in their writings an interest in Taoism and Ch’an Buddhism, but it generally goes no further than was normal for the somewhat eclectic Neo-Confucians They were, like most major figures of the wen-jen hua movement in later times, Confucian literati. Su Tung-p o was fascinated, during various periods of his life, with Buddhist mysticism and Taoist alchemy, and objected to the stem morality of some Neo-Confucian philoso­ phers;48 but he also wrote commentaries on the Confucian Classics, expressed a deep admiration for Chou Tun-i,46 and always preserved a thoroughly Confucian concern for human society. The fundamental contention of the wen-jen hua theorists was that a painting is ( or at least should be) a revelation of the nature of the man who painted it, and of his mood and feelings at the moment he painted it. Its expressive content therefore depends more upon his personal qualities and his transient feeling than upon the qualities of the subject represented. A man of wide learning, refinement, and noble character will, if he adds to these attributes a moderate degree of acquired tech­ nical ability, produce paintings of a superior kind. To support this belief, it was necessary to suppose—sometimes in spite of the evidence, one feels—that the great painters of the past had all been what Chang Yen-yiian claims they were, “retired scholars and lofty-minded men.” Chang himself stopped short of basing his critical judgments consistently upon this somewhat questionable criterion; the painter whom he praises above all others, W u Tao-tzu, was a profes­ sional artist of no notable scholarly status. Su Tung-p o, however, pro­ fessed to prefer the works of the T ang poet-painter W ang Wei (699759 ) to those of W u Tao-tzu; the latter, “for all his surpassing excellence, must still be discussed in terms of painting skill, while W ang Mo-chieh [i.e., W ang Wei] achieved his effects beyond the visual image.”4' Kuo Jo-hsii, the late eleventh-century author of Tu-hua Chien-wen Chih and a leading spokesman for the wen-jen hua viewpoint, elabo­ rates on Chang Yen-yiian's observation: I have . . . observed that the majority of the rare paintings of the past are the work of high officials, talented worthies, superior scholars, or recluses living in cliffs and caves; of persons, that is, who “followed the dictates of loving-kindness and sought delight in the arts.”*® . . . Their elevated and refined feelings were all lodged in their paintings. Since their personal quality was lofty, the “spirit consonance” [of their paintings] could not but be lofty.49

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Mi Yu-jen, son of another member of die Su Tung-po coterie, the painter and connoisseur Mi Fu (1051-1107), borrows the words of the Han dynasty Confucian Yang Hsiung in setting forth the view of painting as communication: Yang Hsiung considered writing to be the “delineation of the mind.” Unless a person has a firm grasp of li [principle], his words cannot attain [a high level of wisdom]. In this regard, painting, as a form of discourse,60 is also a “delinea­ tion of the mind.” In these terms it is understandable that all [outstanding artists] in the past should have been the glories of their respective ages. How could this be anything that the artisans for hire in the market place could know about?51 W hat Yang Hsiung had written is this: “Speech is the voice of mind; writing is the delineation of the mind. When dus voice and delineation take form, the princely man and the ignoble man are revealed.”62 Kuo Jo-hsii also quotes these lines, prefacing them with the flat statement: “Painting is the equivalent of writing.” Both calligraphy and painting he regards as “prints of the heart [mind]”; the painters conception, he says, “arises in feeling and thought, and is transferred to silk and paper.”63 It will be clear from these examples, which are typical of Sung dy­ nasty wen-jen statements about painting, that literati painting theory is based upon, and completely in harmony with, the Confucian ideals of the arts which we have outlined above. As a worthy activity for the literatus who wishes to “seek delight in the arts” and to manifest his mind, painting is now a means of self-cultivation; and the products of this activity, as embodiments of the admirable qualities of cultivated individuals, serve a Confucian end in conveying those qualities to others. Along with literature and calligraphy, painting helps to main­ tain a desirable continuity within the great humanist tradition of the Confucian scholars, perpetuating feelings and awarenesses which would otherwise perish with the men who felt them. A few qualifications should be made here. Obviously, not all good painters were sages or paragons of virtue; nor were all men of noble character good painters. No critic of any consequence ever judged a picture according to what he knew about the moral worth of the artist. A literati critic was likely, on the other hand, to consider the admirable qualities which he perceived in the picture to be reflections of admirable qualities in the man who produced it. The notion of “the man revealed in the painting” was used, that is, to account for excellence in art, not to determine it. Also, one finds fewer explicit references to morality in the Sung dy­ nasty discussions of painting than in some of the earlier writings on art quoted above. In Sung and later times, the men most admired were not

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those who merely exemplified the simple virtues. Such men were ac­ corded their eulogies in the appropriate sections of the biographical compilations (Filial Piety, Unswerving Loyalty, etc.), but scarcely noticed otherwise. The Ideal Man, for the later periods in China, was a more complex figure, a richer personality; and the desire of later ages was to understand him, see him in all his richness and complexity. Treas­ ured and transm itted were anecdotes reporting his behavior and sayings in various circumstances; his surviving literary productions; and, as revelations of even subtler facets of his mind than these could preserve, his calligraphy and paintings. The transition from the romantic theory of expression, in which the artist’s response to his subject determines the emotional content of the work, to the wen-jen hua theory in which the expression was less de­ pendent upon subject m atter, may be further illustrated with two short and syntactically parallel phrases which were applied to artists of the sixth and eleventh centuries. The first, used by an early T ang w riter in speaking of Chan Tzu-ch’ien, has already been quoted: “Aroused by things of the world, he consigned his emotions to them” ( ch’u-wu liuch’ing). The second occurs in the comments on Wen T ung, a painter of bamboo and a close friend of Su Tung-p’o, which appear in the earlytwelfth-century catalog Hsüan-ho Hua-p’u-. “Wen T ung availed him­ self of natural objects in order to lodge his exhilaration” ( t’o-wu yiihsing).54 The ways in which these phrases differ reveal the change in attitude toward subject m atter in painting. Response to particular objects or scenes in nature is no longer the stimulus of that emotion which impels one to artistic creation; instead, the painter “avails himself of things” (t’o-w u), or as other writers have it, “borrows things” ( chia-wu), as vehicles for conveying feelings having no necessary connection with those things. Ch’ing, “emotion,” has given way to hsing, “exhilaration.” Hsing, in art theory, denoted an undefined intensity of feeling which, embodied in a work of art, could instill in that work a quality of subtle excitement without suggesting an unseemly display of strong and par­ ticularized emotion. Even more interesting is the replacem ent of liu (rendered as “con­ signed” but more properly “to deposit, leave behind”) by yü, “to lodge.” Both yü and the closely related, often interchangeable chi are favored by the wen-jen hua writers for describing the embodiment of personal feeling in art; the combination chi-hsing, “lodging exhilaration,” is espe­ cially common. Teng Ch’un, for example, writing of an early Sung land­ scapist in his Hua Chi ( 1167), speaks of works in which the painter has “lodged his exhilaration, pure and remote—true gentleman’s brush-

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work!”** These tenus do not appear in T ang or pre-Tang texts on paint­ ing; they are, I think, bound up with the wen-jen hua concept of artistic expression. Su Tung-p’o seems to have considered the "lodging of one’s mind” as a means of dispersing emotion, somewhat as did Han Yü. He writes the following of calligraphy, but might as well have written it of paint­ ing: The traces of brush and ink are committed to that which has form [i.e., die writing itself]; and what has form must then be subject to corruption. But if, even though it does not achieve non-being, one can enjoy oneself with it for the moment, in order to give lodging to one’s mind, forget the sorrows of one’s declining years, then it is a wiser pastime than gambling at chess. Nevertheless, to be able to maintain one’s inner equilibrium without making use of external diversions is the highest achievement of the sages and worthies. But only Yen-tzu [Yen Hui, the favorite disciple of Confucius] could achieve that.86 Behind some part of wen-jen hua theory, I believe, lie Neo-Confucian attitudes toward the emotions and toward the proper modes of response to material things. Fung Yu-lan contrasts the Taoist insistence on non-attachment to the view of the Neo-Confucians, who "argue that there is nothing wrong with the emotions per se; what is important is simply that they should not be a permanent part of the person who sometimes expresses them.” One’s essential composure must not be disturbed; imbalance is to be avoided. The Chung-yung, a text highly esteemed and often quoted by the Neo-Confucians, says: While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the mind may be said to be in a state of equilibrium. When these feelings have been stirred, and they act in their due degree, there ensues what may be called a state of harmony.57 Fung, quoting this passage, comments: "All such feelings are natural, and so must be allowed expression. But at the same time we must keep them ordered by means of ‘instruction,’ and must regulate their expres­ sion so that it will be neither too extreme nor too restrained.”88 A good part of wen-jen hua aesthetic is, in fact, a "regulation of expression” in terms of painting, aimed at ensuring that the artist does not commit the artistic equivalents of those excesses in human conduct against which the Confucians warn. The literati painters’ theory of expression, by divorcing the import of the picture from that of whatever it represents, lessened the danger of "over-attachment.” The same attitude operated, I believe, in both philosophy and art: the perfect man responds to natural stimuli, but is not permanently affected by them, because they do not alter his essential self; the scholar-painter makes use of natural

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objects only to “lodge his mind,” not allowing them, or his feelings to­ ward them, to dictate the im port of his pictures. Tung Yu, the early-twelfth-century author of Kuang-cKuan Hua-pa, a series of colophons w ritten for paintings, points out that the painter should rely primarily upon w hat is within himself, rather than upon w hat he sees outside. Tung tells the familiar story of how W u Tao-tzu painted a landscape of a place he had visited without depending upon sketches, and comments: “The theorists say that hills and valleys are formed within the painters breast; when he wakes, he issues them forth in painting. Thus the things leave no traces in him, whereas in­ volvement would arise out of actual perception.”59 The term yü-i, which in wen-jen hua writings has the sense of “lodg­ ing one’s conceptions,” is also used for “resting one’s thoughts lightly upon” something, giving it one’s passing attention. The two senses are not, I think, totally unrelated. Neither “lodging one’s conceptions” in pictures or things nor “resting one’s thoughts” on them implies any abiding concern with those things. Su Tung-p’o, composing a dedicatory inscription for his friend W ang Shen’s “Precious Painting Hall” (Paohui T an g ), employs the same antithesis of the verbs yii and liu as we saw in the parallel phrases quoted above, to contrast a “lodging” or “resting” of attention with a more permanent “depositing” or “fixing.” His argument adheres completely to the Neo-Confucian position, even making the standard distinction between that and die Taoist view. He writes: The princely man may rest (yii) his thoughts on objects, but may not fix (Uu) his thoughts on objects. If he rests his thoughts on them, then even subtle things will suffice to give him pleasure, and even extraordinary things cannot become afflictions [obsessions] to him. If, however, he fixes his thoughts on them, even subtle things will be afflictions, and not even extraordinary ones a pleasure. Lao-tzu says: “The five colors confuse the eye, the five sounds dull the ear, the five tastes spoil the palate . . but the sage never really re­ nounces these [sensual objects], for he merely rests his thoughts on them. Now, of all enjoyable things, painting and calligraphy are best suited to giving men pleasure without at the same time influencing them. But if one’s thoughts become fixed inextricably in things, this will lead to unspeakable disaster. Su Tung-p’o tells how he himself has owned many notable examples of painting and calligraphy, but has allowed them to leave his hands without begrudging them. H e comments: It is like clouds and mists passing before my eyes, or the songs of birds striking my ears. How could I help but derive joy from my contact with these things? But when they are gone, I think no more about them. In this way, these two tilings [painting and calligraphy] are a constant pleasure to me, but not an affliction to me.00

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The painter, by deriving the forms of his paintings from his own mind, can escape being “involved” with material things; the collector, avoiding over-attachment to the objects he owns, can prevent them from becoming “afflictions” to him. Tung Yu was once accused by a Ch an Buddhist monk of encouraging such over-attachment to paint­ ings by writing in praise of them. The two were discussing a “ Grove of Pines” picture owned by the Ch an master, whose name was Hui-yiian. Hui-yiian said: The enjoyment of things weakens one's will; for one cannot forget one’s love for them. This is another kind of corruption. You, moreover, write about these [paintings]; how can you escape increasing people’s emotional attachments, multiplying their involvements? Long ago, the master Hsiian-lan attained a “beyond-mind method” [hsin-wai fa]; he forgot himself and also forgot external things. He retained [liu] no resentment or desire. Chang Tsao once painted [the walls of Hsiianlan’s] house, doing old pines, thinking that these would be beautiful to look upon. Fu-tsai heard of this, and composed an encomium; Wei Hsiang made a poem to be attached to it. In a later age, these were called the “Three Nonpareils.” Next day, Hsiian-lan saw them and plastered them over, saying, “They had no business scabbing up my walls!” This is to say, why should such things be retained in die breast even though they be good? It’s all the worse when one is stuck to a single thing and can’t break loose from itl Tung Yu replied: If a person is sincere (ch'eng) within, he is released from such attachments, and although things be ever so numerous, revealing their images and baring their forms, they cannot become involvements to him. He who is cultivated within his mind is fixed and quiet, like still, deep water; since he does not offer a target for things, they cannot leave their barbs in him.*1 However unsatisfying, or even irritating, this answer may have been to Hui-yiian, it is exactly the reply which a good Confucian should have returned to such a Buddhist outburst.62 If you are so “unculti­ vated” that you must be afraid of your responses, it suggests, go and live in a monastery, or a cave; we Confucianists cultivate our minds and remain in the world. The key word in Tung’s answer is ch’eng, “sin­ cerity”—in the Sung period, a kind of summation of the Confucian vir­ tues. “Sagehood is simply a m atter of sincerity,” writes Chou Tun-i. “Sincerity is the foundation of the five virtues, and the source of all virtuous conduct.”6* It was the Confucian virtues, in wen-fen hua theory, which regulated the creation of paintings as well as the enjoyment of them. A painting done by a cultivated man was a reflection of his sincerity. To under­ stand how it was so, we may consider a few more of the tenets of wenfen hua.

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Non-purposefulness; spontaneity. In the ideal creative act the painter creates as Heaven does, spontaneously, without willfulness. Su Tung-p’o reports a conversation between his friend Wen T ung and a guest who argued that painting was not "in accord with the Tao,” since the painter, through human activity, usurps the creative powers of Heaven. W en answered: But die Tao is what I lovel I am quite unattached to bamboo . . . At die beginning, I saw the bamboo and delighted in it; now I delight in it and lose consciousness of myself. Suddenly I forget that the brush is my hand, the paper in front of me; all at once I am exhilarated, and the tall bamboo ap­ pears, thick and luxuriant. How is this in any way different from the im­ personality of creation in nature?04 According to Mi Fu, the T ang calligrapher Yen Chen-ch’ing criti­ cized the writing of some of his famous predecessors as having “too much of purposeful activity, lacking the air of blandness, of something accomplished by Heaven.”65 This desirable quality of “blandness” will be considered later. W hile there are undoubtedly traces here of the Taoist concept of wu-wei, “non-activity,” and perhaps of the Ch’an practice of empty-mindedness in m editation as well, such ideas were by this time so thoroughly assimilated into Confucian thought that the Sung scholars had no need to turn to other sources for them. Chou Tun-i begins the third section of his T ung Shu with the words “Sincerity is non-acting” ( ch’eng w u-w ei). C heng Hao, another Neo-Confucian philosopher who was contemporary with Su Tung-p’o, stresses the im­ portance of emptying the mind: Denying outer things and affirming inner ones is not as good as forgetting both outer and inner. When both are forgotten, one’s mind is cleansed and uncluttered; uncluttered, it will be concentrated; concentrated, it will be clear. Once one’s mind is clear, how can any further response to external things become an involvement?66 For the notion of non-purposefulness, the Chung-yung again supplies classical authority: “H e who possesses sincerity is he who, without any effort, hits w hat is right, and apprehends, without the exercise of thought; he is the sage who naturally and easily embodies the right way.”67 Creation as transformation; li (principle). Huang Ting-chien (1045-1105), a friend and disciple of Su Tung-p’o, writes that if the artist has the conception of bamboo (for example) already formed be­ fore he begins to paint, then the brush and ink “transform” it (cause it to grow into full existence) just as natural objects are “transformed,” m atured by the forces of nature. “W hen one takes up the brush and ink, one’s achievement is the same as that of natural creation.”68 Tung Yu writes in a'colophon on a painting, “The sage transforms [or creates.

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hua] through movement of his spirit; his skill is identical with that of Heaven and Earth.”** Once more, the ideas underlying such statements are to be found in Confucian thought The person who is possessed of “complete sin­ cerity,” says the Chung yung, “can assist the transforming and nourish­ ing operations of Heaven and Earth . . . he can form a trinity with Heaven and Earth.” And also: “It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity under heaven, who can transform.”70 The leap from transformation as the moral betterm ent of die world (as the Chung yung intends it) to transformation as the creation of artistic form is a broad one, but not too broad for the agile-minded wen-jen hua theorists. Both kinds were seen as analogous to creation-transformation in nature, and so to each other. An important element in the analogy between cosmological and artistic creation is the regulation of both by li, that “principle” or “natural order” which, in die words of Fung Yu-lan, “prevents the creative proc­ ess from proceeding haphazardly.”71 Su Tung-p’o, in an often quoted colophon dealing with U in painting, distinguishes some things which have constant forms (people, animals, buildings) from others which have only constant principle (rocks, trees, water, clouds). Any devia­ tion from “truth” in the former is easy to spot, he says, whereas only the most perceptive will detect a lack of li in the latter. The bamboo paint­ ings of Wen Tung, he goes on, “are in accord with natural creation, and also satisfying to human conceptions. Truly, they are embodiments [lodgings] of [the mind of] a man of complete wisdom.”72 Tung Yu, in a colophon on a “Playing Dogs” painting, claims that a painter who catches the outer form and likeness of such things as dogs and horses is not necessarily skillful; to be called skillful, he must also capture their li.18 Huang Kung-wang, in the Yüan dynasty, goes so far as to speak of li as “the most urgent necessity in painting.”74 We need not expend any space here in establishing die importance of li in later Confucianism. Li-hsüeh, the “study of li,” is in fact one of the Chinese terms for Neo-Confucianism. Li, for the Sung philosophers, was “that which is above form”; for the Sung wen-jen hua theorists, as well as for the philosophers, it was what guided the creation of form; for the artists, one may suppose, it was that sense of “rightness” which preserved the forms they produced from seeming “perverse and willful.” The virtue of concealment. Nothing was more vociferously abhorred by the literati critics than showiness—the deliberate display of brilliance, beauty, or skill. However admirable it may appear to the person ca­ pable of penetrating its seeming plainness, the painting must be unas­ suming always. We need not, when we observe this quality of plainness in the works of literati artists, attribute it direcdy to their Confucian

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background; it is more likely to be simply a manifestation of the more reserved and subtle taste of die cultivated man. But the statements applied to these works by die critics, especially their words of praise for “blandness” (ping-tan), certainly call to mind the Confucian dis­ approval of ostentation. The virtues sought in a painting corresponded closely to those which the Chung-yung assigns to the chün-tzu, the princely or superior man: It is said in the Shth-ching, "Over her embroidered robe she puts on a plain, single garment,” intimating a disinclination to display the elegance of the former. Just so, it is the way of the superior man to prefer die concealment [of his virtue] . . . It is characteristic of the superior man, though he ap­ pears bland, never to produce satiety . . .75 P’ing-tan, "blandness,” came to be the quality most highly prized in human personality. Liu Shao, W ei dynasty author of die Jen-wu Chih ("Notices of Personalities” ), writes: In the character of a man, it is balance and harmony which is most prized; and for a character to have this balance and harmony, it must have blandness [p*ing-tan] and flavorlessness [wu-wei]. . . . Therefore, when one observes a man in order to inquire into his character, one must first see if he has bland­ ness and only later seek for his cleverness and brilliance.76 One must hasten to add, as die Chinese writers frequently do, that die “blandness” was only apparent; a semblance of impoverishment in a painting should conceal an inner richness, serve as the plain garment which covers the em broidered robe. “Blandness” is not to be equated with dullness, either in the art work or in the man it reflects. The preference for “awkwardness.” Another attribute adm ired by the literati critics was cho, “awkwardness,” the opposite of cKiao, “skilL” An adm irable kind of “clumsiness” was held to be more difficult to achieve than technical competence, and to be the natural outcome of a truly spontaneous act of creation. That an element of Confucian moral­ ity is involved in this preference is suggested by Chou Tun-is pro­ nouncement on skill and awkwardness, which begins in a Taoist vein but ends in a Confucian one: Someone said to me, “People call you awkward.” I responded: “Skillfulness is what I detest. Moreover, it grieves me to see so much skill in the world.” I was then pleased to make a poem: "The skillful talk much. The awkward keep silent. The skillful exert themselves. The awkward are more retiring. The skillful are the thieves. The awkward are the virtuous. , The skillful bring misfortunes upon the people. The awkward bring them happiness.”

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Ah! if only all people in the world were awkward! Harsh government would be discontinued; there would be tranquillity above and obedience below; customs would be purified, and abuses ended.77 Skillfulness in painting carried the additional stigma of profession­ alism, and was always suspect of indicating a desire to please. Tung Yu writes: The artisan-painter makes his work salable by his skillful craftsmanship; by giving pleasure to the vulgar ones of his time, he hopes to make his pictures easier to take. He is afraid only that the world will not want his pictures be­ cause they are different.78 Like all actions of the proper Confucian, painting must be moti­ vated by a worthy aim—or, ideally, by no rationalized aim at all. In any event, desire to win the favor and patronage of others was decidedly not a worthy aim. The literatus could paint for either (or both) of two reasons: as a pastime in the intervals between scholarly pursuits, an outlet for excess energy; or as a means of presenting to the understand­ ing of others something of his own nature, feeling, and thought. The scholar who was equipped with only a moderate technical facil­ ity in painting, but who had practiced the self-cultivation and acquired the classical education of the ideal literatus, was thus considered to be better prepared to produce worth-while paintings than the professional who had concentrated upon learning the technique of the art. Feng Shan, an eleventh-century scholar and author of a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, writes these lines in a poem about land­ scape painting: Creation by means of brush and ink is not an achievement in itself; In essence it is the overflow of literary activity. Thus, true [painting] skill, in our time, is the property of us Confucians.78 “Set your heart upon the Tao, support yourself by its power, follow the dictates of loving-ltindness, and seek delight in the arts.” With this quotation from the Analects of Confucius,80 the anonymous author of Hsüan-ho Hua-p'ut writing in the early twelfth century, opens his first chapter. “Art,” he goes on, “is a thing which the gentleman whose heart is set on the Tao cannot neglect; but he should only ‘seek delight' in it, and no more”—that is, it must not be his chief concern in life, but only an avocation. “Painting is also an art,” the passage concludes. “When it attains the highest point, then one does not know whether art is Tao, or Tao art.”81 Such a statement—even more, the occurrence of it at the beginning

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of die im perial catalog of an emperor, Hui-tsung, who was not especially sympathetic to the wen-jen hua ideal—indicates the standing which painting had by this tim e attained within the Confucian community. Painting had joined literature, calligraphy, and music as an activity suitable for the literatus; and a responsiveness to the subtler qualities of painting, as well as to those of the other arts, was expected of the culti­ vated man. It was the formulation of wen-jen hua theory as a Confucian doctrine for the creation and evaluation of paintings, and the practice of painting by an increasing number of scholars, which had brought about this adoption of painting into the group of “polite arts,” those with potential moral value to the individual and to society. The statem ent in the last quotation about painting and Tao is quite similar to what Chu Hsi writes of literary art: “The Tao is the root of literary art, and literary art the brandies and leaves of the Tao . . . literary art is, in fact, Tao. Su Tung-p’o, in our time, has put it thus: ‘W hat I call literary art has to be at one with Tao .’ ”82 W e may conclude by observing how completely this same philoso­ pher adheres to w hat was, by this time, the orthodox viewpoint for one of his class, when he comes to write about painting and calligraphy. Chu Hsi had no very profound interest in either art, and was no con­ noisseur; on one occasion, writing on a painting of oxen, he was guilty of echoing the eternal axiom of the philistine: "I don’t know anything about painting, but I know that this is a real ox in this picture!”88 Else­ where, with no greater originality of thought but in better accord with prevailing views, he writes the following: On a letter from Tu K’an (978-1057) to Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-72): “When I scrutinize and enjoy these ‘delineations of his m ind/ it is as if I could see the man.” On a landscape by Mi Fu: “These must be the most beautiful scenes from the hills and valleys within the breast of this old man, which at that moment he all at once spewed forth, to give lodging to his genuine enjoyment.” On the calligraphy of Huang Tm g-chien: “It cannot be judged in terms of skill and awkwardness. Rather, when I look at it I think back to all the loyal and worthy men of that age, and reflect how sad it is that they should have m et with failure.” On an “Old Tree and Strange Stone” painting by Su Tung-p’o: “This piece of paper by the late master Su is the product of a moment’s sport, the overflow of a playful spirit. He did not set out to do it with any special deliberation; and yet his proud bearing, revealed in it, rever­ berates through ancient and modern times. It serves to let us see in imagination the man himself.”84

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It would have distressed Chu Hsi deeply to be told that the paintings he admired, and the attitudes toward them which he accepted, were really expressions of Taoist or Buddhist mysticism. Fortunately for him, no one of his time was likely to tell him anything of die sort; for, so far as we can ascertain from surviving writings, nobody thought so. The assignment of a large part of what is vital and interesting in Chinese art to the opponents of Confucianism did not take place until very recent times. It rests, I think, on die flimsiest of foundations or on none at all; and it demands a strict reexamination. It may well prove in other cases, as in that of wen-jen hua, to have been an obstacle rather than an aid to our understanding.

yr

yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr yr

Hans H. kranket T A N G LITERATI : A COMPOSITE BIOGRAPHY

The T ang period, 618-907, was one of the great ages of Chinese literature. The volume of writing, both poetry and prose, was unprecedented in a culture where the elite had long prided themselves on their literary accomplishments. Poetry was written, chanted, and appreciated by all literate classes of T ang society, down to the lowliest monks and courtesans, and an elegant prose style was deemed essen­ tial for all serious communications, public or private. Emperors, princes, and high officials surrounded themselves with distinguished men of let­ ters, and even hard-bitten generals employed literati to write their proc­ lamations, reports to the throne, and other documents. Great writers emerged who remain among the giants of Chinese literary history. They wrought significant changes in the form and content of prose and poetry. Literary skills were required for passing the examinations which fed personnel into the vastly expanded bureaucracy. For all these rea­ sons, the man of letters looms large in T ang society and culture. Hence it is only natural that a long section in the official history of the period is devoted to the lives of one hundred and one selected writers. It is with these biographies that my paper deals. In deviating from the pattern of the other essays in this volume, each of which takes up a single life, I conform to the conception of my Chinese sources, where the literati are viewed not as individuals but as a group. I propose to examine first of all the scope of this section of the official history, to discuss the historians’ criteria of inclusion and exclusion, their scale of values, and related questions. Second, I shall take up the content of these biographies under three headings, corresponding to the three aspects of the lives in which the historiographers are interested: offi­ cial careers, literary achievements, and character. In trying to discern how the literary man lived and worked in T ang times, we shall have to slice through many layers of historiographical conventions. The re­ sulting composite biography is bound to be fragmentary and distorted, but it may nevertheless shed some light on the attitudes and behavior

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patterns of the Tang man of letters, and his role in the society of his time. The section of the Old History of the Tang Dynasty (completed in 945) that comprises the biographies of one hundred and one literati is entitled “Garden of Letters.”1 This “Garden of Letters” is one of the special biographical categories (sometimes called “classified biogra­ phies”) that appear, in varying numbers, in all the Chinese dynastic histories. These special categories seem to be reserved for those who fall short of the Confucian ideal of a well-rounded gentleman—the biog­ raphies of the greatest men of the dynasty are always unclassified. Fur­ thermore, the classifications follow each other on a descending scale which roughly reflects the value system of the historiographers. On this scale, the literati rank rather low in the Old History of the Tang Dy­ nasty: the only categories below them are technicians, recluses, exem­ plary women, barbarians, and rebels. Thus the selection of writers included in the “Garden of Letters” is not based on literary criteria alone. To be sure, some of the best-known poets and prose writers are included—men like Ch’en Tzu-ang, Li Hua, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Li Shang-yin, Wen Ting-yün, and Ssu-k ung T u. But one misses others of equal stature, such as Chang Yiieh, Han Yü, Po Chü-i, and Li Te-yü. The explanation has already been suggested above: the latter were prominent statesmen, whereas the “Garden of Letters” is reserved for those who were famous only as literati, and this, in the view of the Confucian historiographer, is a shortcoming. Though brilliant and successful as writers, they all failed to win top positions in government service. Nearly all of them, however, did serve in the bu­ reaucracy. W ith this restriction in mind, it might be supposed that the one hundred and one biographies give us a fairly representative sampling of bureaucrats who were active in literature from all parts of China throughout the three hundred years of Tang rule. But this is not the case. The selection is uneven in both time and space. If we divide the Tang epoch into six periods of approximately fifty years each, and assign each of the one hundred and one literati to the period in which all or most of his political and literary activities occurred, we get the following distribution: Period I Period II Period III

(618-649): (649-705): (705-756):

13 38 33

Period IV (756-805): Period V (805-859): Period VI (859-907):

6 6 5

That is to say, seventy-one of the one hundred and one literati were active between the mid-seventh and the mid-eighth century, during the

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reigns of Kao-tsung, the Empress Wu, Hsiian-tsung, and some brief interregna; only thirteen belong to the first two reigns (Kao-tsu and T ai-tsung); and a mere seventeen are registered for the entire second half of T ang, beginning with the An Lu-shan insurrection, which marks indeed a turning point in many respects. The irregular distribution in time is partly due to the fact that many literati are assigned by the his­ toriographers to categories other than the “Garden of Letters.” The distribution in space is also uneven. If we list the home regions of the literati in terms of modem provinces and arrange them in the order of frequency, the regional picture looks like this: Honan: Hopei: Kiangsu: Chekiang: Shensi: Shansi:

23 14 12 12 11 10

Shantung: Hupeh: Szechwan: Kansu: Anhwei: Home unknown:

5 5 5 2 1 1

Many parts of China are not represented at all—regions in which the cultural level was still low in T ang times. By rearranging the above table to form larger regional units, we obtain the following: Northeast (Honan-Hopei-Shantung) : Southeast (Kiangsu-Chekiang-Anhwei): Northwest (Shansi-Shensi-Kansu) : West-central (Hupeh-Szechwan) :

42 25 23 10

I have found no correlation between temporal and spatial distribution, that is, the regional distribution does not change significantly in the course of the T ang dynasty.I I will now consider the official careers of the literati. The first point of interest in a man’s career is how it started. This is usually but not always indicated in our biographies. The most-traveled route to office was the examination system, especially after the system was revamped and strengthened in the reigns of Kao-tsung and the Empress Wu. (For the two preceding reigns, 618-49, our record contains not a single in­ stance of an examination leading to a career. ) Of the eighty-eight liter­ ati who flourished from the mid-seventh century to the end of T ang, all except three had official careers. One half of these eighty-five men— namely, forty-three—entered their career through an examination, usu­ ally the chin-shih examination (thirty-two instances). Another im portant aid in getting an appointment was recommenda­ tion by an influential patron. This is reported in twenty-one of the

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ninety-six biographies that register an official Tang career. Eight of these twenty-one record both an examination (the chin-shih in seven cases) and a patron. There were numerous other possible starts for a career. Some of these are of sufficient interest to be cited here. K’ung Shao-an, the first of the one hundred and one literati, had the good fortune and foresight to befriend Li Yiian, the future founder of Tang, when the latter was a military commander under the preceding dynasty, Sui, “punishing rebels” for the last Sui emperor. K ung was then a Provincial Censor ( chien-cKa yii-shih ), and his assignment was to check on the activities of Li Yiian. As soon as Li Yiian openly rebelled against the Sui and set up his own dynasty, K’ung hastened to the newly established T ang court to demonstrate his loyalty to the new regime. He was rewarded with the job of Director of Decrees in the Imperial Secretariat ( nei-shih she-jen) and with gifts of a house, two fine horses, money, rice, silk, and cotton. (W e may note in passing that K’ung Shao-an was following a family tradition: his ancestors were nearly always on the winning side in one power struggle after another through four hundred of the most turbulent years in China’s history.2) However, K’ung was surpassed by another man, Hsia-hou Tuan, who had also formerly been a Provincial Censor “supervising” Li Yüan’s army. This man got to the T ang court ahead of K’ung, and therefore received a better job, Director of the Imperial Library (mi-shu chien). K’iing expressed his chagrin in a manner befitting a man of letters: he improvised a poem at an imperial banquet, when the emperor called for poems on the theme “pomegranate.” K’ung’s contribution contained the couplet: A late comer am I, My blossoms don’t open in time for spring.8 (The pomegranate blooms later than other flowering trees in China.) Not every man of letters had the opportunity to cultivate the friend­ ship of a future emperor, but obviously many successful careers depend­ ed on knowing the right people. Recommendation and patronage have already been mentioned. An interesting case of recommendation which did not come off is that of Hsiao Ying-shih ( 717-68 ). When he received the chin-shih degree in 735, he was familiar with the leading literati of his time. That was why, according to his biography, Chief Minister Li Lin-fu wanted to appoint him to a government office, and summoned him to his official residence. At the interview Hsiao appeared dressed in coarse hempen clothing (he was mourning his mother). Li was of­ fended, and severely reprimanded him. Result: no recommendation, no a p p o in tm e n t, and enmity between the two men. Hsiao then wrote a

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fu ridiculing Li, entitled “Fa ying-t’ao fu,” parts of which are quoted in the biography.4 Just as French intellectuals gravitate to Paris, so the T ang literati were for the most part anxious to be stationed at or near the imperial court. But it was usual for them to begin their official careers with a humble position in a provincial administration. As many as forty-five of our biographies mention a provincial post in the early part of the career. This seems to have been an established procedure. When Hsiieh Feng was recommended for the office of Director of Decrees in the second half of the ninth century, his enemy Liu O m an objected, stating in a memorial that according to the system established in pre­ vious T ang reigns, no one could become Director of Decrees in the Im­ perial Secretariat or the Imperial Chancellery who had not previously served in a provincial post. Hsiieh was consequently given a provincial appointment.6 But the initial provincial appointment did not necessarily cut the young w riter off from the mainstream of cultural life. He often managed to be placed in a district near one of the imperial capitals or other metro­ politan centers. In fact, our record does not contain a single case of the apprenticeship being served in a really remote province. Assignment to outlying areas does occur, as we shall see, as a punishment. Some literati commenced their careers by serving in the court of an imperial prince as tutors, clerks, readers, librarians, or drafters of official documents. Fifteen such initial assignments are recorded in our biog­ raphies. They are a holdover from pre-Tang times. Hence they are most common in the early period of T ang rule, then gradually decrease, and cease altogether in the middle of the dynasty. Here are the details: In Period I ( 618-^49), out of eleven literati who became T ang officials, six started in a princely court; in Period II ( 649- 705 ), seven out of thirty-seven; in Period III ( 707- 56 ), two out of thirty-one; but none of the seventeen literati who lived in Periods IV-VI (756-907 ) began their careers that way. An instructive example of a man of letters who got started on his career through princely patronage is Yüan Ch’eng-hsii. I quote from his biography: During the Wu-te era (618—27), his reputation came to the notice of Li Yiian-chi, Prince of Ch’i, who summoned him to become a scholar in his court. Later the Prince’s court was abolished. . . . When Kao-tsung was a prince and Emperor Tai-tsung was selecting men of learning and character to be in his entourage, the emperor asked the Vice-President of the Imperial Secretariat, Ts’en Wen-pen: “Who among the renowned ministers of Liang and Ch’en may be cited as outstanding? And furthermore, are there any junior members of their families who may be summoned?” Wen-pen replied:

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"When the Sui army invaded Ch’en, all die officials fled and scattered; none remained except Yüan Hsien, who stayed at his lord’s side. When Wang Shih-ch ung attempted to usurp the throne from the Sui, the regional officials petitioned him to proclaim himself emperor. But Yüan Hsien’s son, the Direc­ tor of Decrees of die Imperial Chancellery, Yüan Ch’eng-chia, pleaded illness and was the only one not to sign. These men, father and son, may well be called loyal and upright, and Yüan Ch’eng-chia’s younger brother, Yüan Ch’eng-hsü, is a man of integrity and refinement. He is truly carrying on the family tradition.” Consequendy the emperor summoned him to become a Companion to the Prince of Chin and to be his Tutor, and also appointed him Scholar in the Academy for the Advancement of Letters.6 In the second half of the T ang dynasty, and to a lesser extent before, die princes were replaced as patrons of die literati by powerful officials, civil and military. These officials surrounded themselves with scholars and writers for practical reasons as well as for prestige. For a talented young man, association with an influential person was often the only way to get ahead. But it always involved the risk of a sudden downfall if the patron should die or lose his position of power. “Guilt by associ­ ation,” an uncomfortably familiar concept in present-day America, was a common offense in T ang China. It was the most frequent reason for inflicting demotion, exile, imprisonment, death, or some other form of punishment on the literati. Out of forty-two literati for whom punish­ ment is recorded, twenty-six were charged with “having formerly be­ friended” some powerful personage who had suddenly become a crimi­ nal. Six of them fell when Chang I-chih and his brother Chang Ch’angtsung, former favorites of the Empress Wu, were executed in 705; the two brothers had brought many literati into the government. Fourteen were found guilty of some personal crime other than association (in­ cluding two who were charged with association in addition to a crime of their own), and four were punished for unspecified crimes. Wang Wu-ching was one of those who were disgraced and exiled (in his case to Ling-piao, in the extreme south) when Chang I-chih and his clique were executed, “because of his former association” with that group.7 But in this and many other instances, it is difficult to determine whether the former association was the real reason for the man’s down­ fall or merely a welcome excuse. Wang had been in trouble before. Once, when serving as Palace Censor, he had pointed out in open court that two Chief Ministers were violating court etiquette by leaving their places and chatting. The two Ministers did not take kindly to this criticism, and arranged for his speedy transfer from the Imperial Palace to the Palace of the Heir Apparent.8 “Association” is a cardinal feature in the biographies—not only as a criminal offense. We read much about who was associated with whom, and in what pursuit. Patronage, friendship, collaboration, and political

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cliques were very real phenomena in the lives of the literati. To seek out these associations was also an im portant concern of the historiog­ raphers. One of their tasks, as they saw it, was to fit each man into the proper groups, affiliations, classifications, and categories. They did this on a large scale when they made their selections for the “Garden of Let­ ters.” This category is in turn broken down into a number of special groups, some of which overlap. The subtle process of grouping within the chapter becomes partly visible in the peculiar phenomenon of the “attached” biographies. To be sure, in many cases this means simply grouping together various members of one family, a well-established practice in the dynastic histories. ( An example of this use of the device is the first biography in the “Garden of Letters,” the biography of K’ung Shao-an: attached to his life are brief notices of his father Huan, his elder brother Shao-hsin, his son Chen, Chen’s son Chi-hsii, and another grandson of Shao-an, named Jo-ssu; only one of these—brother Shaohsin—is presented as a man of letters in his own right. ) But “attachm ent” was also used traditionally for grouping together men who were felt to belong together for reasons other than family ties. Thus to the biography of Yiian Wan-ch’ing are attached those of four of his colleagues. The five were brought together by the Empress W u in the late seventh century, and became known in their own time as “The Scholars of the Northern Gate” ( Pei-men hsUeh-shth ) .9 This appellation shows that die grouping was already an accomplished fact when the biographers went to work. Another group with a fixed name were “The Three Em inent Men of the Northern Capital” ( Pei-ching san chieh). Two of these, Fu Chia-mo and W u Shao-wei, were friends and colleagues. The third one, Ku I, is linked to them simply because he served in the same region ( T*ai-yiian, the Northern Capital ) at the same time (around 700), and because he was equally famous as a writer.10 The same lack of homogeneity is evident in the group of six contem­ porary writers attached to Ho Chih-chang (659-744). Five of them were, like Ho, from the area of modem Chekiang, but the sixth one, Li Ch’eng-chih, was from w hat is now Honan, and I have discovered no reason for his inclusion in the group.11 Another rather incongruous series of lives is appended to the biog­ raphy of Li Hua: first, there is his friend and classmate Hsiao Ying-shih (both took the chin-shih degree in 735); then comes Li Hua’s nephew Li Han, who was himself a w riter of some note; next, there is Li Hua’s friend Lu Chü; next, there are three other writers of the same period— Ts’ui Hao, W ang Ch’ang-ling, and Meng Hao-jan—who “acquired fame but no high official rank.” The last biography in the group is that of Yiian Te-hsiu, another friend of Li H ua’s.12 Association, then, is a cardinal but loosely used concept in the

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structuring of the biographies. Another key concept is “precedent.” The biographer takes pains to record actions and events that started new procedures or served as models for later generations. He is inter­ ested in such precedents regardless of whether they affect the life of the individual. For example, the highest state examinations were held only in one place, the Western Capital (C hang-an), down to 764. In that year, one of our literati, Chia Chih, proposed that they be held in the Eastern Capital (Lo-yang) as well, and his proposal was adopted. “This practice,” says the biographer, “was initiated at that time.”18 He does not comment on this institutional change, which strengthened and expanded the examination system and made possible a greater influx of literati, particularly from northeastern China, into the bureaucracy. It is significant that Chia Chih, who proposed this innovation, was him­ self one of the northeastern literati; his family home was in Lo-yang. In the biography of Kuo Cheng-i it is stated that when he was ap­ pointed Honorary Vice-President of the Imperial Secretariat in 681, he thereby became Minister Ranking with the Chief Officers of the Im­ perial Secretariat and the Imperial Chancellery ( t’ung chung-shu menhsia p’ing-chang-shih, often abbreviated p’ing-chang-shih), and that “the title p’ing-chang-shih as an appellation for Chief Ministers [tsaihsiang] was first applied to Cheng-i and his colleagues.”14 Here it is clear that the historiographer is more interested in the change in bureau­ cratic nomenclature than in the man who was graced with a new title. In the case of Chang Yün-ku, the manner of the subjects death leads to the establishment of a precedent. Chang was one of Emperor T’aitsung s favorites, but he was accused of mishandling a judicial case and executed by Tai-tsung’s order in 631. Then the emperor regretted his hasty decision and instituted a new procedure, providing that every death sentence was to be reviewed five times before it could be carried out. “This procedure,” states the historian, “originated with the case of Chang Yiin-ku.”15 We turn now from the official careers of the literati to their literary activities. The biographies reveal a stereotyped image which die tenthcentury historiographers had formed of the art of letters and of those who practiced it. The man of letters, as seen by them, was likely to be precocious, profoundly learned, endowed with a prodigious memory, and able to write at incredible speed. He tended to be haughty, and hence to offend his colleagues and superiors. Precociousness will be discussed below in a different context. The association of book learning with literary excellence is entirely in keep­ ing with the Confucian tradition. The stereotyped feature of a photo-

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graphic memory—a natural corollary of the erudition prerequisite to literary composition—is repeatedly illustrated by graphic detail, which arouses our suspicions.16 Of Chang Yiin-ku, for example, it is said that “he was able to recite stone inscriptions from memory, and to reconstitute the arrangement of a chessboard.”17 The same topos of memorizing stone inscriptions oc­ curs also in the biography of Hsiao Ying-shih (717-68) : “Once he went on an excursion to the Dragon Gate, south of Lo-yang, together with Li Hua and Lu Chü. The three of them read old stone inscriptions by the roadside. Hsiao Ying-shih could recite each one after reading it once; Li Hua had to read them twice before he could remember them; and Lu Chü thrice. Critics ranked the three men’s intellectual stature in the same order.”18 This ranking of literati according to their intellec­ tual and artistic abilities is one of the biographers’ preoccupations. Speed of literary composition is another topos. It crops up in eleven of the biographies, and also in the Introduction to the “Garden of Let­ ters.” It reflects, on the one hand, an actual phenomenon of literary craftsmanship in T ang times. There were many occasions in the lives of the literati that called for improvisation and swiftness in writing: literary games and contests, public and private parties and celebrations, imperial commands and state examinations. The stock phrase hsia pi cKeng chang (“as soon as the brush touches the paper, a composition is finished” ), already common in earlier dynastic histories, occurs fre­ quently in our biographies. It even became institutionalized in T ang times as the name of a state examination. On the other hand, the topos of speedy composition reflects a blurred concept of the art of writing in the layman’s mind. The work of a creative genius appears to the outsider to be accomplished effortlessly and instantaneously. The historiographer reveals himself to be an outsider when faced with the phenomenon of purely literary composition. One may even detect a trace of hostility in his attitude toward the man of letters. This is reflected in the frequent references to literary pride—another topos. A typical anecdote brings together two poets of the early seventh century, Cheng Shih-i and Ts’ui Hsin-ming. I quote from the biography of Cheng Shih-i (whom the historian labels “frivolous” ): At that time, Ts’ui Hsin-ming considered his own writings to be nonpareil. . . . Cheng Shih-i once met him traveling on a river and said to him: “I have heard of your line, ‘Maple leaves fall on the Wu River, cold.’ ” Ts’ui Hsinming, delighted, showed him more than a hundred of his poems. Cheng Shih-i looked at them, and without finishing his perusal, he said: “What I have seen is not as good as what I had heard.” With these words he tossed diem into the river. Ts’ui Hsin-ming was speechless, and rowed away.19

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The haughtiness of the Tang poets may have been exaggerated by their unsympathetic biographers, but it was certainly a real phenome­ non, and not restricted to T ang China. One of our contemporary Eng­ lish poets has said: It is evident that a faith in their vocation, mystical in intensity, sustains poets. . . . Although it is true that poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition is of the purest kind attainable in this world, for the saint renounces ambition. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they ultimately are as revealed by their inmost experiences, their finest perceptions, their deepest feelings, their uttermost sense of truth, in their poetry.20 H art Crane used to hand a sheet or two fresh off the typewriter to his friends at Sunday afternoon parties, and he would say: “Read that! Isn’t that the grrreatest poem ever written!”21 The biographies are concerned not only with literary men’s attitudes toward creativity but also with the sources of their inspiration. Hu Ch’u-pin (fl. second half of seventh century, died before 689) is stated to have needed alcohol in order to write,22 and the drinking of wine is also mentioned in four other biographies.23 The association of wine with literary creation was a well-established tradition in the Tang period. It can be traced back to the time when the literati as a class achieved their prominent position in Chinese society, namely, the end of Later Han.24 But the compilers of the Old History of the Tang Dy­ nasty were actually less interested in wine as inspiration for writers than in its effect on a man’s official career. In the biography of Hu Ch’upin, they note that his intoxication never caused him to betray state secrets. And leaking official secrets, as we shall see, is an offense charged to several other literati. Of Ts’ui Hsien ( chin-shih of 807, d. 834), they report that as a provincial administrator, he drank with his friends all day, then did excellent work on official documents all night, which caused his subordinates to admire him as a “divine being” (shen fen).2* Another source of inspiration for writing—music—is mentioned in the biography of Li Han: “During the Tien-pao era [742-56] he lived in Yang-ti. He perfected his writings with the utmost care, and his ideas formed slowly. He often requested musicians from the magistrate of Yang-ti district, Huang-fu Tseng. Whenever the flow of his ideas dried up, he had music played until his mind was at ease; then he proceeded to write.”26 Finally, the specific occasion that led to the writing of a work of poetry or prose is frequently told, and in some cases, the work itself is quoted wholly or in part—a well-established feature in the biographies of the dynastic histories. But the compilers of the Old History of the Tang Dynasty depart from earlier tradition by quoting only works they

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consider “useful,” never those that are merely “beautiful.” They thus carry out a policy credited to Emperor Tai-tsung, under whose per­ sonal direction historiography was thoroughly reorganized and systema­ tized as a state institution. The Chen-kuan cheng-yao by W u Ching (670-749) sets forth Tai-tsung’s viewpoint as follows: In the early part of the Chen-kuan era [627-50], Tai-tsung said to Fang Hsüan-ling, who was in charge of compiling the history of the reigning dy­ nasty: “Reading the Histories of Former and Later Han, We find that they quote Yang Hsiung’s ‘Fu on the Sacrifice to Heaven at the Palace of the Sweet Springs’ and his ‘Fu on the Emperor’s Hunt with the Yii-lin Guards’; Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju’s ‘Fu of Tzu-hsii’ and his ‘Fu on the Imperial Hunting Park’; and Pan Ku’s ‘Fu on the Two Capitals.’ Since these works are written in frothy and flowery style, they are of no use as exhortations and admonitions; why should they be incorporated in books of history? But memorials to the throne and discussions of affairs with trenchant and straight wording and ideas, capable of benefiting the art of government—all such works should be included in the history of this dynasty, regardless of whether We have followed them or not.”27 In accordance with this policy, we find a total of twenty-four works quoted in whole or in part in twenty-two of the one hundred and one biographies. The reasons for quoting these works are in some cases quite obvious, in others less so. As I see it, every quotation meets one or more of three qualifications: (1) it develops a concept dear to the historiographer’s heart; (2) it criticizes a person or group disliked by the historiographer; (3 ) it illustrates the talent or character of the subject of the biography. The first qualification is m et by most of the quoted memorials and other communications addressed to emperors and heirs apparent. Though they are usually concerned with a specific problem which was acute at the moment, the historiographer must have felt that they all possessed a “timeless” value which warranted their inclusion in the dynastic history, for the indoctrination and edification of future gen­ erations. Four of these quoted documents follow an established Confucian tradition in setting before incoming and future emperors the image of a perfect ruler. In one of these, Liu Hsien (d. 711 or 712) urges the Heir Apparent—later the Emperor Hsiian-tsung—to cultivate Confucian virtues rather than gratify sensual desires; he emphasizes the value of the Confucian Classics as models of style, and warns against flowery elegance. The biographer adds that Hsiian-tsung was pleased with the memorial and rewarded its author.28 Another memorial to the same Hsiian-tsung as Heir Apparent deals with a more specific situation: Chia Tseng (d. 727) opposes the em-

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ployment of singing girls in the Heir Apparent’s palace. ( Hsiian-tsung's interest in music and musicians is a historic fact. ) The Prince’s reply, acceding to Chia Tseng’s request, is also quoted.29 It is noteworthy that, Tai-tsung’s opinion notwithstanding, the requests embodied in the quoted memorials were in most cases granted. In other words, the historiographer preferably cites documents that positively affected de­ cisions and thus made history. Some of the memorials in the “Garden of Letters” deal with state ceremonies and Confucian ritual. Ho Chih-chang outlines the procedure to be followed in the imperial sacrifice at Mount T ai in 725.80 Y a n g Chiung during the I-feng era (676-79) argued at length—and success­ fully—against a proposed change in the official robe patterns.81 When Emperor Kao-tsung died in Lo-yang, the Eastern Capital, in 683, Ch’en Tzu-ang presented convincing arguments for proceeding with his burial right there, rather than at the Western Capital.82 This is historically important in connection with the Empress Wu’s shift of the capital from Ch’ang-an to Lo-yang, and the concomitant loss of power of the north­ western aristocracy centered around Ch’ang-an. In the early part of the K’ai-yiian era (713-42), a memorial by Hsü Ching-hsien succeeded in reducing the lavish awards to officials who did well in archery contests.88 The three last-mentioned memorials all stress the Confucian idea of economy in government expenditures. Others concern filial piety and ancestor worship: Sun T i complained in 736 that his father was merely a District Magistrate ( hsien ling), while he himself was already a Director of Decrees in the Imperial Secretariat (chung-shu she-jen ). This demonstration of filiality got his father a promotion.8* Hsii Ch’i-tan (630-72) pointed out in a memorial that it was unfair to degrade a man’s ancestral shrine to atone for crimes committed by his descendants. He, too, carried his point.85 In the category of criticism of persons and groups disliked by the historiographers, there is Hsiao Ying-shih’s fu satirizing Li Lin-fu (see above), and a long diatribe against the eunuchs, written by Liu Fen in 828 in response to an examination question set by the emperor himself.86 The third criterion for quoting from a man’s works is mentioned specifically in several instances, and is perhaps applicable to other quotations as well: the passages are stated to represent the man’s “special talent” ( ts ai ), or some trait of his character, good or bad. For example, a statement presented to the throne by Kuo Cheng-i in 678, during a Tibetan invasion, advocating a more defensive military policy vis-à-vis Tibet, is quoted with evident approval and asserted to be typical of Kuo Cheng-i’s “talent” (ts*ai).37 On the other hand, Ssu-k’ung

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T u ’s (837-908) “Essay on the Hsiu-hsiu Pavilion” is quoted as “typical of his perverseness and swaggering pride.”88 As far as references to literary style in the biographies are con­ cerned, the historiographers show interest in matters of priority, imita­ tion, innovation, and precedents. (W e noted above a similar interest in precedents in connection with official careers. ) The just-mentioned essay by Ssu-k’ung T u is stated to be an imitation of Po Chii-i’s “Tsuiyin chuan.” Stylistic innovations are credited to Fu Chia-mo and his friend and colleague W u Shao-wei (both fl. around 700). They created a new style, says their biographer, for stele inscriptions and eulogies. Based on the Confucian Classics, it became known as the “Fu-W u style.”39 (A modem literary historian agrees that F u s and W u’s prose writings mark a significant step in the development of the ku-wen move­ ment.40) Li Shang-yin ( 812P-58? ) began to w rite in “modem style” under the influence of his patron Ling-hu Ch u.41 W hile the historiographers make occasional references of this sort to literary styles, they pay more attention to the practical aspects of literature. They tell us how the literati made use of their literary abilities in their workaday lives. Many of them found employment as tutors, secretaries, clerks, editors, librarians, propagandists, and the like, in government bureaus and private establishments. Some became ghost writers for highly placed officials: under the reign of the Empress Wu, Yen Chao-yin and Sung Chih-wen “secretly” wrote many of the pieces published under the names of the empress’s favorite Chang I-chih and his associates.42 Li Shang-yin was in charge of composing documents at the head­ quarters of General W ang Mao-yiian. The General “adm ired his talent and m arried off his daughter to him.” “W ang Mao-yiian,” the biography goes on to explain, “though literate and trained in Confucian learning, came from a family of military men.”48 Li Yung (678P-747) managed to amass a fortune by writing on commission. He ground out hundreds of obituaries, eulogies, and other prose pieces for private individuals, and for Buddhist and Taoist tem­ ples. The historiographer does not approve of such commercialism. H e cites the opinion of “critics at the time” who held that “from an­ tiquity down, no one had ever gone as far as Li Yung in selling his writings to acquire wealth.”44 In the style of these biographies, the historian often bestows praise and condemnation indirectly, through unnamed “critics at the time,” and occasionally by citing the opinion of a prominent individual. An understanding of the subtleties of literature was frequently a practical asset. For instance, during the campaign against Koguryö in

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667, the commander of the Chinese garrison at Pyongyang wished to inform his commander in chief, Li Chi, that he was short of men and supplies. To keep this information from the enemy, he coded the mes­ sage in the form of a li-ho shih—a poem in which one has to split die characters and recombine the elements in order to get the hidden mean­ ing. When General Li Chi received the poem, he exclaimed: "What’s the use of writing poetry in a military emergency like this? That man should be beheaded!” The situation was saved by one of our literati, Yiian Wan-ch’ing, who was on Li Chi’s staff. He deciphered the code message, and reinforcements and supplies were dispatched at once to the Chinese garrison.46 Though the historiographer does not say so explicitiy, he is obviously delighted to expose the dullness of the military mind. ( Compare the remark about General Wang Mao-yiian above. ) But during the same Korean campaign, Yiian Wan-ch’ing got into trouble through an indiscretion in the application of his literary skills. Li Chi ordered him to write the official proclamation of war. In the proclamation, Yiian included the phrase: “Koguryö does not know how to defend the strategic Yalu.” This tipped off the enemy commander: he promptly stationed troops at the Yalu River fords, and the Chinese forces were unable to cross. For this mistake, Yiian was exiled to the extreme south—but he was amnestied soon thereafter.46 A critical situation which arose at a solemn court function in die last decade of the seventh century was retrieved through the literary skill of Wang Chii. Five imperial princes were being installed in their fiefs, and when the ceremony was already under way it was discovered, to everyone’s dismay, that the documents of investiture had not been brought along. Then Wang Chii improvised the five complicated docu­ ments on the spot, dictating them to five scribes simultaneously, and the ceremony went on as planned.41 (Again the topos of instantaneous composition. ) Another writer whose literary skills impressed the historiographers was Li Chii-ch uan ( d. 898 ). “Since the empire was then very unsettled, with people wandering hither and thither, eager for salary and position, he served various highly placed men as a writer in different parts of the country. . . . Li Chii-ch’uan’s style and ideas were clever and swift, his brush sped as if it were flying, it spread to the far borders and left nothing unmoved.” When he served on the staff of the warlord Wang Ch’ungjung, “it was due to Li Chii-ch’uan’s assistance that Wang Chung­ king repeatedly acquired merit.” Later Wang Ch’ung-jung was killed by his subordinates, and Li “was found guilty by the court councillors of having served” Wang. Consequently he was sent to an obscure pro­ vincial post. There he met another warlord and former acquaintance.

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Yang Shou-liang, who exclaimed; “ H eaven has bequeathed Secretary Li to me!’ ” In Yangs service, Li together with his master was captured by an opposing military commander, Han Chien. But while Yang was killed by his captor, Li wrote a poem which so moved Han Chien that he released him and later put him on his own staff. On another occasion, when the emperor took up his temporary abode in the region governed by Han Chien, the latter found the local resources insufficient to support this added burden. He therefore commissioned Li Chii-ch’uan to write an urgent appeal which was sent to all parts of the empire, asking for help in supplying provisions for the royal household and setting up the imperial residence. The appeal went out in all four directions, and in response supplies poured in. When Li Chiich’uan put ink on paper and set forth his arguments, both form and reasoning were perfect. Emperor Chao-tsung esteemed him profoundly. At that time Li Chü-ch’uan’s fame spread all over the empire. When Chao-tsung returned to the capital, he gave him a special appointment as Imperial Adviser. He concurrently continued in his post as assistant to Han Chien. As Li Chii-ch uan had lived by the power of his brush, so he died by it, according to the biography. W hen the mighty warlord Chu Ch’iianchung was preparing to make himself independent (he did overthrow the T ang dynasty nine years later), he consulted Li about his plans. Li presented him with a statement, setting forth both the advantages and the disadvantages of C hus plan. Chu Ch uan-chung was displeased. On top of this, another man of letters in Chu’s service was jealous of Li and pointed out to Chu; “ ‘Im perial Adviser Li’s statem ent is sincerely and beautifully written, but it does not redound to my master’s advan­ tag e/ On that day,” concludes the biography, “Li Chii-ch uan was killed by order of Chu Ch uan-chung.”48 As we turn now to the third aspect of the biographies—character and personality—we find several key concepts emerging. One of these is the orthodox Confucian association of intellectual and moral qualities. For example, we saw above that Yüan Ch’eng-hsü was selected by Em­ peror Tai-tsung as one of several “men of learning and character” to serve in the entourage of the Heir Apparent, and that he was said to have inherited these sterling qualities from his ancestors. The theory of inherited qualities accounts in part for the habit of listing ancestors, with official titles, near the beginning of many biographies. Another reason is the need to establish a man’s family background and his aristocratic lineage, if any. An interesting case of inherited character­ istics is described in the biography of Sung Ling-wen (fl. second half of seventh century ) : he was a strong man, a fine calligrapher, and a

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good writer; and each of his three sons inherited one of his three dis­ tinctions.49 Another key phenomenon is the biographers’ failure to conceive a human life in dynamic terms of growth and development. Rather, they think of personality, career, and the capacity to achieve ( in literature or any other field) as more or less fixed from the very beginning. This view is evident, for example, in the biography of Ts’ui Hsin-ming (b. in 580’s, d. after 632) : Ts’ui Hsin-ming was bom exactly at noon on the fifth day of the fifth month. At that time, several unusual birds with extremely small, five-colored bodies gathered on a tree in the courtyard, drummed their wings in unison, and chirped beautifully. The Director of the Imperial Observatory of Sui, Shih Liang-shih, had just come to Ch’ing Prefecture and happened to be present. He interpreted the omens as follows: “The fifth month is fire; fire is bright­ ness; brightness is literary splendor. The exact hour of noon means the acme of literary perfection. Then there are birds of five colors, beating their wings and chirping. This boy will surely become a brilliant writer whose fame will spread over the entire world. Since the birds are small, his salary and rank will probably not be high.” As he grew up, his learning was broad, and his memory keen. As soon as his brush touched paper, a composition was fin­ ished [hsia pi ch’eng chang]. Kao Hsiao-chi, who lived in the same rural area, had a knack for appraising character. He often told people: “Ts’ui Hsin-ming’s talent and learning are rich and vigorous. Though his fame will be unsurpassed in his time, his rank will unfortunately not be exalted.”50 A brilliant writer with low official rank—this formula fits practically all the literati in this chapter. We note in this passage four of the topoi en­ countered previously: spreading fame, broad learning, keen memory, and instantaneous creation. This is the only reference to birth in the biographies. And it is men­ tioned here, not because the historian is interested in the event itself (he does not even state the year of birth) but because it reveals the pattern for the whole life. The pattern is not visible to ordinary mortals, but open to interpretation by experts. There are altogether nine pre­ dictions that were later fulfilled in the “Garden of Letters.” The concept of the fixed pattern also accounts, I believe, for the fre­ quent references to youth. A man’s early life is viewed not as a stage in his development but as the period when his personality type first becomes apparent. Thirty-three of the biographies mention traits manifested in youth, often in stereotyped terms. The statement that a man early in his life “was good at writing” (shan shu wen) occurs eight times in these same words, and ten more times in different words. In three biographies we are told that the boy could write well at a specified young age (six, eight, and nine sui respectively). The phrase “broadly

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learned” (po hsüeh) is applied to four young literati, and of three others it is said in different words that they studied hard in their youth. Five men of letters are asserted to have won early fame through writing, and five others through unspecified achievements (which are also likely to be literary in the context of the “Garden of Letters” ). Should some of these allegations of precocious literary ability be discounted as exaggerations? This is hard to determine. W e should note the historic fact that two of our literati, Yang Chiung (b. 650, d. between 692 and 705 ) and W u T ung-hsiian ( fl. 779-94 ), actually passed the state examination for “divine youths” (shen-t’ung).51 Besides literary skill and book learning, there are other traits—good and bad—which may be manifested in a man’s early life. Of Yüan Te-hsiu (696-754) it is said that “in his youth he was renowned for his filial piety,”52 and the same formula is applied to W ang Chung-shu (762823).53 The biography of W ang Han (fl. first half of eighth century) states that “in his youth he was unconventional and unrestrained.” In the course of the same biography, we learn that he was fond of horses, singing girls, hunting, drinking, and wild parties.64 All these are vices charged to many other literati. It is apparent that the historiographer is not interested in a man’s early life as such but in bringing to light early manifestations of his innate character. The concept of the fixed pattern does not rule out the possibility of changes of character. In the biography of T ang Fu ( chin-shih of 810, d. 839 or 840) it is pointed out that in the first part of his life he was a good official and an upright man, but in the last years of his life, when he held powerful and lucrative positions on the southeastern coast (m odem Fukien), he became greedy and corrupt. This came to light, notes the biographer, after his death, when his servants and concubines fought over his property, which was found to amount to 100,000 strings of cash.65 Ch’i Huan (d. between 746 and 756) is portrayed as a strange mix­ ture of good and bad qualities. As Provincial Censor ( chien-cKa yiishih) “he prosecuted those who had committed wrongs, but first tried to sway them from their evil ways. His contemporaries considered this to be a praiseworthy way of discharging the duties of that office.” (In ­ direct praise, attributed to “contemporaries,” as noted above. ) Again, as prefect of Pien prefecture, “he governed with integrity and strictness; the people and his subordinates sang his praises.” In another of his many provincial assignments, he improved transportation and increased revenue by altering river courses. In further attempts to repair w ater­ ways he failed. Once he was demoted for a mistake committed by many literati: ho indiscreetly reported a private conversation with the em-

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peror to another official. Later he was found guilty of embezzling goods, in collusion with eunuchs. He also m altreated one of his concubines. Yet such affairs are never mentioned unless it be to demonstrate a trait in the man’s character, or to furnish the clue to an event in his career. So far, Ch’i Huan looks like T ang Fu: an inconstant type who changed from good to bad. But the end of the biography presents him in a different light: in the 740’s Ch’i Huan was punished repeatedly, having incurred the enmity of Li Lin-fu, the dictatorial Chief Minister who got a bad press in the official histories. After Ch’i Huan died, “when Su-tsung ascended the throne, he was rehabilitated as one of those who had been entrapped by Li Lin-fu, and posthumously hon­ ored.”59 This concludes the biography. The historiographer apparently concurs in the final and official rehabilitation, which may or may not be intended to cancel the previously noted defects in the man’s character. Several other biographies are less ambiguous. They clearly depict their subjects as mixtures of good and evil. Ts’ui Hao (d. 754), for instance, “had superior talents but lacked the behavior of a gentleman. He was addicted to gambling and drinking. When he was in the capital, he would marry a girl for her beauty, and then abandon her as soon as he was even slightly displeased with her. Altogether he was married four times.”57 Li Yung (678?-747) is praised repeatedly in his biography as a literary genius of early and steadily increasing fame. Some of his writings, says the biographer, “are highly esteemed by men of letters.” He got his first (?) official appointment—as Imperial Adviser of die Left —through the recommendation of two high functionaries, Li Ch’iao and Chang Ting-kuei. Their recommendation stated that “his writings are lofty and his behavior straight: he is fit to become an admonishing and warning official.” One of his memorials, successfully opposing the ap­ pointment of a heterodox wizard, Cheng Pu-ssu, as Director of die Imperial Library, is quoted at length—a sign of approval. The same biography characterizes him as “boastful” and “gay and extravagant,” and notes that “he freely engaged in wild hunting.” He is furthermore criticized, as already mentioned, for amassing wealth by writing on commission.98 The rationale behind the mixture of good and evil is, if I am not mistaken, a key concept in the historiographers’ over-all view of die literati: they are imperfect because they fail to achieve the dual Confucian ideal of self-cultivation and distinguished public service. Had they been equally successful in both pursuits, they would not have been relegated to the “Garden of Letters.” In one of the biographies, this view is neady summed up by P*ei

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Hsing-chien, who is credited, like Ts’ui Hsin-ming’s neighbor, with “a knack for appraising character.” Speaking of the four famous literati W ang P’0 , Yang Chiung, Lu Chao-lin, and Lo Pin-wang (they flour­ ished in the second half of the seventh century), P*ei said: "W hether a gentleman goes far depends primarily on his ability and knowledge, and only secondarily on his literary skill. Although P ’0 and the other three possess literary talent, they are unsteady and shallow. Surely they are not made of the stuff required for achieving high rank. . . . ”69 In epitome, w hat is the composite picture of the T ang literary man emerging from diese one hundred and one biographies? He was usually a bureaucrat, but rarely rose to the top. He entered his career through the civil service examination system, or through die recommendation of a patron, or both. Much of his life and work was influenced by his associations with relatives, friends, colleagues, superiors, and subordi­ nates. His fate was closely linked to the rise and fall of his present or former patrons. His innate talent as a w riter became manifest early in his life. He was precocious, bookish, learned, and endowed w ith a prodigious memory. He could produce poetry and prose at fantastic speed when the occasion demanded it. He was inordinately proud of his literary achievements. He tended to seek inspiration for his work in wine, music, horses, singing girls, and other pursuits unworthy of a Confucian gentleman. H e was often indiscreet in divulging confidential information. Nevertheless, imperial and princely courts, high officials, and military commanders sought his company and found his services indispensable. This was fortunate for posterity, for it made possible the creation of literary masterpieces th at have endured to this day.

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Robert Ruhlmann

TRADITIONAL HEROES IN CHINESE POPULAR FICTION V

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Heroes in literature and art express more than the personal opinions and dreams of particular authors. They also embody current values and ideals, and convey a powerful image of the conflicting forces at work in the society of their time. Superhuman yet human, these prestigious personalities inspire and encourage imitation, initiate or revive patterns of behavior, and thus play a significant role in shaping history. Some are created by writers and artists in a definite time and place; others are passed on from ages immemorial by continuous or intermit­ tent traditions. Some are myths which in die course of time were given a historical character; others are figures from history transformed into myths.1 Stable eras tend to mirror themselves in a “classical” type of hero, a healthy and reasonably happy man who is successfully adapted to his circumstances; dynamic tensions and crises of an age of change, in contrast, are usually embodied in a “romantic” hero, a younger man, often the victim of tragedy—a misfit, a rebel, a defender of the old order or founder of a new one. Study of heroes, of their genesis and muta­ tions, has much to contribute to the understanding of social and intel­ lectual history. For this purpose fictional literature is of exceptional interest; the novel, the drama, and some forms of narrative poetry all have a broader appeal and offer more direct and explicit means of expression than non­ fiction, music, and visual arts. Indeed, students of European and Ameri­ can literature have for some time been mining fiction for historical data relating to the economic, the religious, and other aspects of die past. Leo Lowenthal, in his brilliant book Literature and the Image of Man,2 extracts from texts of European dramas and novels—from Vega and Cer­ vantes to Ibsen and Hamsun—elements for a picture of three centuries of social change. Scholarly studies of Chinese fiction for the history of Chinese thought and institutions are relatively few and recent,8 primarily because die

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novel and die drama have until this century traditionally been disdained by Chinese literocrats4 as inferior genres and, when w ritten in the collo­ quial language, as altogether unworthy of the name of literature. It is becoming clear that Chinese fiction may well be the only available source for the study of certain values and attitudes that have influenced die course of Chinese history. Chinese fiction offers an indirect but fruitful approach precisely where direct research into motivations is difficult—among the illiterate and semiliterate common people of China. In Chinese fiction there are popular heroes, scholarly heroes, and also those resulting from the interaction between the first two types. This paper seeks to analyze some of the specific attributes of these heroes, some of the political, moral, and sentimental values they stand for, some of the reasons for their appeal to m ens hearts, and some of their effects on human behavior at particular periods. POPULAR FICTION AND CONFUCIAN SCHOLARS

Mencius distinguishes, in a famous formula, between "those who labor with their minds” and "those who labor with their physical strength,” adding th at the former govern the latter and are supported by them.5 This formula could hardly ever have applied literally to China, but it is reflected to some extent in the more or less perm anent division of Chinese society into two distinct strata—the peasantry and a small and proud elite based on land, office, and literacy. It was the elite that produced for its own consumption the bulk of Chinese literature and Chinese historiography. All formal works, such as commentaries on the Classics, poems, technical treatises, and documents of an ideo­ logical or administrative character were w ritten by scholar-officials for other scholar-officials, and remained inaccessible to the illiterate masses. The same is true of the anecdotes and parables, the "tales of the mar­ velous” ( cKuan ch’i ), the "occasional notes” (pi chi), the short stories, and the other kinds of fiction composed by scholars in the classical lan­ guage across a span of more than two thousand years. Ming and C hm g novels, though w ritten in colloquial language and patterned in form after popular fiction, were obviously intended to be read only by the educated.5 One should no more assume that these scholar-writings accurately expressed the beliefs and feelings of the masses than that the thoughts of the two communities coincided at any given time. These genres, however, are only a part of Chinese fiction. The re­ mainder is basically oral and addressed to a motley audience—mostly peasants, artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants, and often their women­ folk too, who throng the marketplace or the teahouses to listen to story­ tellers, puppeteers, and singing girls, crowd around stone stages of

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temples at festival times, or gather before crude wooden platforms of open-air theaters to watch the actors. Singing girls are seldom found outside big cities. But storytellers and theatrical troupes are every­ where, and often wander from place to place, even into out-of-the-way villages7 and the secluded women's quarters of large mansions.8 Then, those who have heard stories and plays retell them for those who have not. Chinese oral literature also includes innumerable songs, proverbs, children s rhymes, work chanties, and dialogues of all sorts. Different degrees of elaboration can be found among them, from pure folklore, if such a thing exists, to the most sophisticated prose and poetry. And, while many of these forms are peculiar to their own province or district (the number of local schools of theater runs into hundreds), there is a constant exchange of themes and techniques among diem. These forms of entertainment have proved to be very enduring. From a comparison of contemporary observations with T ang and Sung documents,9 it is clear that most of them have been thriving for more than a thousand years with few changes in form. Their regular audi­ ences in todays Peking and those of Ch’ang-an during the Tang, of Kaifeng and Hangchow during the Sung, seem to be, mutatis mutandis, of closely comparable social level and occupation. The language they use is the colloquial speech of their time, with only a few passages in formal style. The subjects of Sung storytellers fall into six traditional categories: ghosts and supernatural manifestations; Buddhist miracles and reincarnations; love and aspects of daily life; crimes and their de­ tection; feats of strength and courage; and historical tales commemo­ rating exploits of great men or the founding and collapse of dynasties. Each of these themes was handled by a specialized guild, among which the guild of chiang-shih—“raconteurs of history”—enjoyed the most dig­ nity. As a result of this specialization, each group of stories long retained its distinctive character while apparently losing nothing of its popularity and vitality. Many texts have been preserved to this day, some only recently re­ discovered and lately published. Among these are dozens of pre-Tang and T ang “popularizations” or chantefables (pien-wen), three Sung plays of the Southern tradition ( hsi-wen ), several Sung dramas in nar­ rative form ( chu-kung-tiao), and more than two hundred Yiian plays ( tsa-chii ). From Yiian times on, there are a number of “ballads” which were partly recited and partly sung ( ku-tzu, t’an-tzu ), novels ( yen-yi, ts'ai-tzu-shu), hundreds of short stories (p’ing-hua, hsiao-shuo), and thousands of plays (hsi, ch’ii).10 These are, however, only a small frac­ tion of the total.11 Some performers used promptbooks, but most could

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not read or write: the transmission of the repertory from fathers to sons or from masters to apprentices was more often than not entirely oral. Of the extant texts, many are anonymous or of collective authorship, and some, products of cumulative authorship spread over several cen­ turies, were long passed on in oral form before being transcribed. Texts available for research, though only a portion of the rich oral repertory, are a valuable means of access to the thought of the illiterate population whom narrators and actors not only entertained but also educated. For centuries, Chinese with little or no formal schooling have derived from theatergoing an amazing knowledge of, and concern for, the history of their country. More im portant still, storytelling and the theater provided channels of expression for feelings that had little or nothing to do with elite influence; they describe not only the life and routine circumstances of the common people, but also “heterodox” be­ liefs, immoral conduct, and political activities directed toward subver­ sion or revolt. Actually, the very existence of a fiction of this sort has always been a challenge to Confucians. Some authors of fiction were literati who refused to take official posts, or who retired under the influence of “heterodox” (Taoist or Buddhist) ideas or out of personal frustration and disenchantment. Others had successful careers as Confucian ad­ ministrators while writing fiction surreptitiously; they regarded their penchant for these despised genres as a weakness and tried to hide it behind pseudonyms and outward conformity. The outward conformity, of course, was to the code of die Confucian elite. For the best part of twenty centuries, most Confucians were agreed on certain basic attitudes about the issues of life and on every man’s duty to cultivate corresponding inner values and to organize society accordingly. L iteratures function and raison d’etre in this per­ spective were to teach truth and virtue: it must contribute to uplifting men by attracting them emotionally toward approved ideals. Storytelling and drama fell far from diese standards. Primarily interested in entertaining, not in improving morals, free to improvise as the occasion m ight dictate, performers were often indecorous and sometimes indulged in irreverent or even subversive satire. Some of their heroes conform to established social and ethical standards; others, however, belong to mythologies which Sung Confucianism wanted to suppress, or exemplify chivalric values altogether foreign to Confucian orthodoxy. Many tales and plays take pains to caution the public explicidy against violating the Confucian codes, and illustrate their point by punishing evil and rewarding good. But this moralizing appears often as superficial and superimposed, a mere sop to would-be censors. The

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picture of sin, represented vividly and with warm human understand­ ing, engraves itself more deeply upon the consciousness than the moral exhortations. It is essentially fiction s indifference to conventional morality that explains the Confucian attitude toward it and the efforts of Confucian bureaucrats to restrict its influence. During the Ming and Ch mg dynasties, the government repeatedly tried to ban "seditious plays,”12 and "novels and licentious works” ( hsiao-shuo yin tz u ), calling them "frivolous, vulgar and untrue.”18 Even so unconventional and noncon­ formist a man of letters as Chin Sheng-t’an ( ca. 1610-61 ) saw fit to alter and truncate the text of the Water Margin in order to discourage ban­ ditry: in his 1644 edition, no honorable surrender is possible for the outlaws; they must all be executed.14 Further evidence of the effort to keep the theater under control is found in the low legal status given to actors; all law codes denied them the designation of "normal common­ ers” ( liang-min). They were classified with slaves, prostitutes, and yamen-runners in the lowest class of the population, as "vile subjects” (chien-jen). This discrimination worked hardship, since offenses com­ m itted by chien-jen were more severely punished than those committed against them.15 Again, local magistrates, responsible for maintaining public morals, checked theatrical performances in town and countryside, and insisted that every time romantic stories like Hsi Hsiang Chi were staged, actors should also perform plays stressing fidelity, filial piety, chastity, and charity. This way of injecting moral elements into the repertory (and so have the Devil spread a Confucian gospel) is com­ parable to the technique the Buddhists had used for centuries, that of making their doctrine palatable by coating it in colorful adventures of rebirths. Why not present to the “inferior men” and “selfish and moneymotivated” tradespeople, through the best mass medium available, ex­ amples of pious sons, devoted subjects, and other virtuous heroes? Study of popular fiction, as it was appreciated by common folk and manipulated by officialdom, can help us to a variety of understandings: of the ambivalent attitude of the literati toward popular media; of their own differences of view on Confucian principles; of the attitudes of the common people—always drawn to and always resistant to the culture of their betters. We shall here explore these problems through one of the many possible approaches: a consideration of the heroes of popular literature. FACT AND FANCY

Historiography purports to describe events as they really happened; it takes pains to ensure unbiased, impersonal observation. Fiction, on

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die other hand, connotes the invention of characters and situations by a creative mind for audiences seeking entertainm ent or escape. To absorb and move is the storyteller’s and the playwright’s aim; their livelihood is at stake, and they cannot afford die dry matter-of-fact tone of police files or official statistics. They can and do "falsify” history for dramatic effect. Yet the very nature of dram atic effect usually limits die extent to which such falsification is possible, bound as it is by die m ental habits of authors and audiences alike. Paradoxically, the Chinese official histories may be less reliable than pure fiction. They report everything as seen from the imperial court, generally neglecting the viewpoint of the provinces. . . . And they are naturally prejudiced in favor of the established institutions and beliefs—the Chinese type of monarchy, die Confucian code of ethics, etc. Also, the historiographers as a body are generally hostile to certain groups of people, such as eunuchs, merchants, monks, foreigners, and soldiers.16 The historiographer had often to use a "crooked brush” ( cKii pi) in favor of family or clique, of the reigning house, and of powerful individuals. The reader can never be sure th at statements of "historical fact” were not in reality calculated moves in some literary or political dispute, or selections of particulars m eant to drive home a moral lesson, to encourage the good and warn the evil.17 Chinese novelists and playwrights, by contrast, are not tied by all these intentions, conventions, pressures, and prejudices. They bring the common people and the local interests into the picture, and throw a colorful light on minor events omitted by histories. They deal with techniques, tools, food, and dress, with institutions, customs, and psy­ chology. Largely free from didactic and missionary purpose, they show man as he is or would like to be, not as the rules say he should be. They offer a candid and intim ate view of the society of their time: Without resorting to abstract discussion, they let us understand the conscious and unconscious assumptions of a society. . . . They indicate what has hap­ pened to religious and ethical ideals after they have been popularized and perhaps diluted, or as they are reflected through the novelist’s individual mind; they reveal the imperfect ways in which social institutions operate in ambigu­ ous and refractory human situations. The novel stands at the point where social history and the human soul intersect.18 Love stories, ghost stories, and Buddhist tales seek the moving and the sensational, but their narrations and dialogues are commonly real­ istic: the motions may be unnatural but the furniture is real. Detective stories give us a welcome view from below of die administrative proc­ ess and help us visualize the lives of lesser officials and their aides.

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As for specifically historical tales, romances, and plays, their method is what an expressive Chinese phrase calls cKi shih san hsü, "70 per cent truth and 30 per cent falsehood,” which might here be paraphrased as ‘70 per cent unreliable history and 30 per cent revealing fiction”; they add to the historical record a wealth of pithy anecdotes and appealing details, suggest motivations, reconstruct conversations, and accomplish “the infusion of the spirit of life into figures of the past, and the re-creation of the circumstances which surrounded them.”19 For this imaginative 30 per cent, authors rely on their own knowledge and experience, and all falsifications, adornments, and rationalizations, whether spontaneous or due to official pressure, all shifts of emphasis and of sympathy detectable in their writings, throw precious light on ideas and beliefs current in their time. The writer of fiction seldom .alters the broad outline of past events as represented in the histories; his fictional touches are limited to welldefined episodes. Nor does fictitious embroidery often affect the spirit of the sources. For example, stories and plays about the agrarian re­ former Chia Ssu-tao (d. 1275) unquestioningly adopt the prejudiced views of the History of the Sung, which was written by Chia s political opponents. According to this official account, Chia rises to high office on the recommendation of his sister, a favorite of the emperor, becomes notorious for his luxury and many iniquities, and finally betrays the country to the Mongols. Fiction adds some highlights to this portrait of a typical “bad last minister,” in particular a description of Chia’s ordering one of his concubines beheaded for a minor offense: she had watched two young men boating and whispered, “How handsome they are!”20 In other cases, there are interesting differences of outlook between history and fiction. In moral standards and political legitimacy, there was no great disparity among rival protagonists of the Three Kingdoms ( a .d . 220-80). Their first historiographer, Ch’en Shou ( 233-97 ) handles them impartially. But the later novels San-kuo chih P’ing-hua and Sanrkuo chih Yen-i, as well as numerous ballads and plays, strongly favor one kingdom over the other two: Shu is right and good, Wu wrong and bad, Wei very wrong and very bad. This emotional preference expresses a popular prejudice already current in Sung times,21 and an opinion of political theorists, including the illustrious Chu Hsi, who eventually determined that Shu-Han was the legitimate dynasty. One consequence of this is that the great Ts ao Ts’ao ( a .d . 155-220), founder of Wei, appears in fiction as an unregenerate and sometimes slow-witted villain, probably because he had been the most powerful opponent of the “right side” in the civil war. The horror felt by audi-

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ences (or him and his machinations was m atched by their sympathy for his adversaries. Clearly fictional literature, while a help in correcting biases of his­ tories, has biases and distortions of its own. Sophisticated novels like Chin Ping Mei and Hung Lou Meng,, as well as related stories and plays, are best suited to describe subtle nuances and to suggest more elusive aspects of a complex society. But the peculiar optics of historical and heroic storytelling and drama require, as medieval theatricals and mod­ em television bear out, that, in a way, all must be good in one camp and bad in the other, and most characters must be either 100 per cent black or 100 per cent white. Some specifically Chinese factors may have accentuated this Manichean pattern; one is the high degree of formalization in Chinese be­ havior. Despite the sweeping alternations of peace and war, order and anarchy, and die deep but slow changes effected by urbanization, tech­ nical progress, and the evolution of juridical and political structures, society remained for centuries "embedded in the cake of custom.”*2 Education relied mosdy on imitation of one's elders, and moral excel­ lence was thought to lie rather in the proper fulfillment of established social roles in family and community living than in individual accom­ plishments (as in W estern civilization). The concept of "roles” was more stereotyped than in other societies, and the right and wrong ways to play these roles were more sharply defined. This is confirmed and reiterated in Chinese biographical writing, which classifies its subjects not only by status or role, but also by ethical judgment of performance; hence such categories of biographies as “principled officials” (hsiin li), “oppressive officials” (k’u li),2* "filial sons and faithful friends” (hsiao y u ), "traitors” ( chien cKen), and “virtuous women” ( lieh mi).*4 Popular fiction does not speak of nondescript fathers and sons, but of “good” and “bad” fathers and “filial” and “ungrateful” sons. Good characters say and do exactly w hat is expected of them, invariably with identical phrases and attitudes; evil ways inspire a somewhat freer invention and more colorful details, but their depiction remains very stereotyped. To give a few examples: the typical bad stepm other has her stepsons dressed in light clothes during the winter, and the father discovers it by accident. Ruthless ambition is portrayed in an everrecurring cliché: a young m arried man passes his examinations, is thereupon offered an official post and a rich marriage to a minister's daughter, claims to be a bachelor in order to be free for the flattering alliance, and forgets his wife back home or drowns her.28 There seem to be only two kinds of courtesans: the heartless one who squanders all a man's money and then has him thrown out into the cold a beggar;

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and the tender, generous one who helps her penniless lover through his studies.24 Critics have classified the subject m atter of Yüan opera into a small number of stock characters and situations;27 the rich variety of h u m an experiences in the rest of fictional literature may be similarly classified. There is the myth of the wicked prime minister, as conventional and stereotyped as the bad last ruler. From Chao Kao of die Ch’in to Yen Sung of the Ming, there are many representatives of this type, all carbon copies of each other, villains appearing on stage with face convention­ ally whitened, wearing the regulation jade belt and long-winged court hat, each with his contemptible offspring—typically a daughter in the imperial harem who spies for her father, and an idle and lustful son who roams around the capital with his bodyguards, on the lookout for young women to seize. These wicked prime ministers promote worthless men, dismiss good officials or have them put to death, and often plot for the throne. They double-cross hard-pressed generals on the frontiers, de­ prive them of supplies and reinforcements, then accuse them of losing battles deliberately. Sometimes they even conduct treacherous negoti­ ations with die enemy. The hero’s role in all these cases is to unmask the villain, to awaken die emperor ot his duties, and, if not heeded, to face death resolutely. Variations occur in details,28 but the over-all treatment of the theme is a cliché.29 Names of great men readily turn into common names, synonymous with specific attributes or virtues. An incorruptible judge will be called "a Pao Kung”; “a Chang Fei” will mean a man of impetuous and reckless courage. Ch u Yüan becomes the symbol of the loyal minister misun­ derstood by an unworthy prince, Kuan Yü the symbol of unwavering fidelity to his lord. On these prototypes are molded a whole series of characters who display the same qualities and resemble each other physically.80 Skillful use of the stereotyped technique is made in the play Hsiao Yao Chin, in which Ts’ao Ts’ao puts to death the Empress Fu and the two sons of Hsien-ti, the last Han emperor, almost before his eyes. The villain does not know that the dynasty he is about to found will end in a similar way; that his own great-grandson Ts’ao Fang, Emperor Fei of Wei, is going to suffer the same fate at the hands of his prime minister, Ssu-ma Shih (this is the subject of another play, Ssu-ma Pi Kung). Nor does he dream that the grandfather of this future agent of divine retri­ bution is Ssu-ma I, his silent lieutenant, who stands right now by his side. History repeats itself: the familiar irony of a theme that has become a staple of the literary craft here ushers in a masterpiece of pathos.81 Despite in trig u in g literary effects of this kind, individualization is

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generally sacrificed to the emphasis on heroic traits. The hero emerges as a rather ingenuous, obvious, and single-minded fellow who makes his decisions without qualms or hesitations and demonstrates little psycho­ logical growth. Yet once this literary convention is accepted, each reader or theater-goer fills in the stereotypes with his own emotions. In China as elsewhere, in fiction as well as in historiography, yester­ day’s hero may become tomorrow’s villain when he represents the ideals or interests of specific groups in society. Witness the Taipings and their adversary Tseng Kuo-fan ( 1811-72), or the Yellow Turbans, the robbers of Mount Liang, Li Tzu-ch’eng (1605?-45) and Chang Hsien-chung (ca. 1605-47), the Boxers.32 Hero worship is a touchstone for the social historian: “Tell me who your hero is, and I’ll know who you are.” EXEMPLARY HEROES

Moral teaching around the world has traditionally emphasized tem­ perance and moderation; a distrust of excess and a cult of perfection understood as a golden mean were ideals of both Hellenic and Confucian thought, and of many other cultures as well. On the other hand, poetry and fiction everywhere traditionally glorify extreme virtues and accomplishments. Ordinary people behave with circumspection, avoid head-on clashes whenever possible, fear men in power, accept and pro­ pose all kinds of compromises. Heroes are made of sterner stuff; scorn­ ing vulgar formulas for success and looking beyond the dilemmas and vacillations that defeat more scrupulous and fearful souls, they satisfy our yearning for an existence that is self-transcending and meaningful in the deepest reaches of the imagination. The Chinese equivalents for “hero” include ying-hsiung (“male,” “outstanding man” ), the archaic phrase ta-chang-fu (“great man” ), and the plebian hao-han (“good fellow”); also widely used in fiction texts are the term fei-cKang jen (“extraordinary man”) and the epithet cKi (“remarkable,” “strange”). These words most often connote unusual physical or moral strength, energy and purposefulness, devotion to a great cause—good or bad—unconventional behavior, and sometimes striking traits of physiognomy and stature. Liu Pei, Kuan Yü, and Chang Fei, meeting for the first time and by coincidence, are mutually attracted by each other’s size and distinctive features: Liu Pei “is eight feet tall, the lobes of his ears touch his shoulders, his hands hang down below his knees; his eyes are set so that he is able to see his ears.” Chang Fei is also eight feet tall; “he has the head of a leopard, round eyes, the chin shaped as the tail of a swal­ low, the whiskers of a tiger, a voice like thunder and the strength of a horse.” Kuan Yii is even taller, nine feet, with a two-foot-long beard.

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"His face is as brown as dates, his lips as red as seal-ink; he has the eyes of the phoenix and his eyebrows resemble sleeping silkworms.” “Clearly,” each remarks of the others, “this is no ordinary man!”88 Physical details are all signs;84they signify and reveal inner greatness even before words and deeds prove it. Passionate and sensitive, the heroes possess “outstanding gifts of personality and talent, and the reso­ lution to behave on a level higher than that of the sages and the wise.”88 They are kind, generous, and refuse rewards; for duty and ideal, they sacrifice their dearest and closest attachments. This is “supramoral.”86 A general orders his son beheaded for a breach of discipline, even though he realizes that his son had to do what he did, and served the country best by doing so.87 Here appears the fundamental difference between the heroic and die “sublunary”38 genres in popular fiction. Tales of love and crime, novels of manners, and other stories, ballads, and plays belonging to the sublunary genre describe the world as it is, with littie or no ideal­ izing. Protagonists of their comic or tragic plots are often evil people, who enjoy money, sex, and power, even if this means early death, or they are common cowards, weaklings, or no-nonsense realists. Some­ times the leading role is played by virtuous men cast from the Confucian mold, men who walk with cautious prudence mosdy along paths of compromise chosen as lesser evils. These characters, while being true to ordinary life, are petty and weak when seen from the “supramoral” level of heroic fiction. True heroes are “more than life-size.”88 And heroic actions are exceptional and extraordinary. Critics con­ tinuously debate their credibility in literature.40 But is heroism unnatu­ ral? Every man secretly cherishes the ambitions of his youth, and ascribes to conflict and compromise the failure of his high aspirations. He sees in heroes strong persons able to do what he hoped to do, over­ come all obstacles and handicaps, withstand all compromise. Thus, heroic behavior expresses human nature and its desires more truly than nonheroic behavior. In China, as elsewhere, the hero and the ordeal he experiences and surmounts are often viewed as a symbol of man’s spiritual ordeal. There are several classic types of ordeal. Hercules, Chu-ko Liang, and Wu Sung perform superhuman labors assigned to them. Su Wu, Pao Ch eng, and Joan of Arc remain faithful to voices heard in their youth. Hector and Achilles, Kuan Yii, Chang Fei, and Yiieh Fei sacrifice their lives in service to their king, their country, their cause. Theseus and Jason, Ulysses and Alexander, Mu-lien, Hsiian-tsang, and San-pao confront the mysterious dangers of the other world, or of distant countries; not all come back alive, but all win everlasting glory.

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Along this lonely path, so high above his fellow men and utterly isolated from them by his own greatness and the uniqueness of his trials, the hero often experiences die tragic despair of Vigny’s Moses: O Seigneur! j’ai vécu puissant et solitaire, Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre!41 But this anguish does not stop him any more than other obstacles or conditions do: driven by passion and faith, he gives himself entirely to his goal, resolved to persevere against all odds. D eath itself does not deter him. Thus he knows no failure: his venture succeeds on a moral plane, for all of us; we re-experience it and gain new dimensions. The hero thrills the imagination because he proves w hat so many respectable citizens secredy doubt—that virtue ultim ately triumphs over vice. The popularity of m ilitary heroes and of the upright judge Pao Ch’eng during die Sung and Yüan dynasties, an era when people were distressed by centuries of misery, m ilitary defeat, and wounded pride, is to be understood in these terms. The poor and downtrodden could find litde to console and uplift them in the traditional advice of those in power, that they should reconcile themselves peaceably to their lot (an fen). More appealing was the image of a savior who would come to relieve their suffering, and to rescue them from invasion, natural catastrophes, and abuses of authority. Such hopes were nourished not only in meetings of secret societies b u t in the relaxed and escapist atmos­ phere of theatrical performances. Playgoers could watch Pao Ch’eng redressing wrongs, regardless of the wrongdoer’s eminence, and order­ ing the execution of a murderous brother-in-law of the Em peror despite the pleas and threats of Princess and Empress Dowager.42 They were even afforded in Hung Tsung Lieh Ma (“Lady Precious Stream”) the spectacle of a beggar marrying the prim e minister’s daughter, winning battles and becoming emperor, after which he sentences the villains who conspired against him and rewards the deserving.43 If love for fictional heroes were in proportion to their visible triumphs or to their power of inspiring optimistic dreams, the most popular tales would be those of the marvelous, which draw upon the heterogenous body of popular religious beliefs and weave elaborate plots that revolve around the workings of Heaven and Hell and feats of divination and magic. Chains of reincarnations lead virtuous men upward through successive rebirths—for example, from official to monk, and finally to emperor—while the wicked are gradually degraded to the status of animals.44 W orthy youths receive from venerable immortals heavenly books containing secrets of warfare that enable them to win battles and establish empires.45 Ghosts hound their murderers, and by dreams

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and miracles engineer their conviction and punishment.46 Snakes and vixens appear in the shape of comely maidens to bewitch scholars and drain them of their vital substance.47 The well-known novels Feng Shen Yen-i and Hsi Yu Chi are rich in supernatural episodes. Though protagonists of these tales are heroes in a sense, the sphere of their activities is as naïve in conception as a child’s fairy story. The marvelous seems to be exploited for its own sake, catering to popular delight in the mischievous, quaint, and comical antics of demons and gods in whose world laws of gravity and rules of common sense are suspended. The victor in these tales is not the most virtuous man, or the strongest, or the most courageous, but the one with the showiest bag of tricks; and this is hardly a valid criterion of heroism. By contrast, historical romances and plays48 tell mostly of actions that really took place in the past, or still happen regularly, or at least belong in the sphere of the plausibly human. Here the notion of heroism is more genuine; reduced to their own resources and facing critical situ­ ations, men show what they are really worth. Psychological evaluations reappear; heroes emerge against a credible background. This is not always true, however, and the line dividing the heroic and the magical is hard to draw. There is no single and clear-cut answer to whether popular imagination conceived its heroes as gods, genii, or just superior men. The use of the word “divine” (shen) in fiction is sug­ gestive: Wu Sung lightly tosses about a stone pedestal, and enthusiastic onlookers cheer, “This is no common man! Truly he is a god!” (or, “divine man!” T ien shen, shen-jen). But obviously this record-smash­ ing champion is considered part of the human race.49 If it remains possible to distinguish between the heroic and super­ natural classes of fiction, the difference lies in the relative number of marvels and other-world events. Kuan Yii has been worshipped for centuries as the warriors’ God of Loyalty, but most of his deeds, even in fiction, are those of an exemplary man, not of a deity. Heroes dis­ play human or suprahuman rather than supernatural strength and energy: this is true of the famous captains, knights-errant, outlaws, statesmen, and diplomats of the W arring States, and of their emulators in all periods of Chinese history; of the Lady Mi who kills herself to save her son, and of Mu-lan, so devoted she joins the army to free her aged father from conscription.50 Most characteristic of heroic fiction are the unyielding patriots. Su Wu and Yüeh Fei. Sent by the Han Emperor Wu as ambassador to the Hsiung-nu, Su Wu was held prisoner by them for nineteen years. First thrown into a pjt to die of hunger, he managed to keep himself alive by eating snow; after a few days the Hsiung-nu relented and sent him

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to the frontiers of their land, near the “Northern Sea” ( probably Lake Baikal), where he lived as a shepherd. Several times the Hsiung-nu offered him honorable posts, but he always refused, to the discomfiture of his countryman Li Ling, who had been captured in battle by the Hsiung-nu and had accepted high office at their co u rt Su Wu, set off against the traitor Li Ling, becomes the symbol of refusal to collaborate with the enemy.51 Psychologically similar to Su W u is Yüeh Fei, leader of the twelfthcentury resistance war against the Chin. W hatever may have been the facts of the long strife between the W ar and Peace parties at the Sung court and at Yüeh Fei s camp—and the circumstances are far from clear —his motto, “Give us back our rivers and mountains!” ( huan wo ho shan)t has remained a battlecry of Chinese patriots through the cen­ turies. ( It was often chalked on walls in areas occupied by the Japanese during W orld W ar II. ) One play shows Yüeh w ith his mother before he leaves for a critical campaign; he is asking her to tattoo on his back the vow “A perfect fidelity to repay our Country!” ( ching chung pao Kuo). Yüeh F eis tragic death is the subject of another play. It be­ gins with the treacherous intrigues of Ch’in Kuei and the recall of Yüeh Fei from his front-line camp to the capital. On his way, the hero stops at the Chin-shan monastery, where the abbot warns him not to proceed to the court and to retire at once from public life. Yüeh ignores this advice, moves on, and is arrested and p u t to death, along with his two sons, in the Dungeon of W ind and Waves. The execution takes place in the middle of the night, two days before the New Year ( 1142); outside a monotonous drizzle falls, “as though Heaven were shedding bitter tears at the injustice.”52 The preceding pages make clear th at the division of popular fiction into realistic, supernatural, and heroic genres cannot be clear-cut. Few novels, stories, ballads, or plays lend themselves to tidy classification; “sublunary” tales, for instance, often include some heroic or super­ natural episodes. But even so, heroic fiction may be seen to exist by itself, between the two other genres, and to embody values and ideals in a way which is both exalted and attractive: this explains the influence it exerts on human behavior. Su W u and Yüeh Fei are dedicated to aspirations untarnished by concern for gross, m undane hindrances. Yet, their achievements do not discourage im itation because they appear humanly possible, not divinely miraculous. To teach by im itation has long been the practice in China, where, traditionally, education has relied on models and precedent more than on rules. W hen youngsters studied the San Tzu Ching and the Erh-shihr ssu Hsiao, they did not memorize a precept, “Honor thy father and

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mother.” Rather, they read of (H uang) Hsiang, who "aged nine, knew how to warm the bed of his parents.”58 A well-known passage of the Li Chi makes its point simply by describing in everyday detail the filial piety of King Wen as a young crown prince.54 Buddhist preachers used the same technique very early, proposing Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as models of altruistic self-denial. Even the Taoist free ideal of conformity to nature and noninvolvement is illus­ trated by exemplary drunkards, poets and hermits—oblivion-bent heroes whose heroism is tested against the blandishments and threats of tem­ poral powers that seek to enlist their services. Some heroes of popular fiction conform closely to Confudan, Bud­ dhist, or Taoist patterns; others demonstrate original ways of playing human roles, ways that reveal the impact of the "little traditions” of thought alive within die common people and sometimes indigenous to a particular province or district. Chinese of all classes are accustomed from childhood to seeing the hero as exemplar, to persuading each other when necessary by refer­ ences to historical or legendary precedents.55 This fact gives an added dimension of interest to our consideration of three heroic types: the prince, the scholar, and die swordsman. PRINCES

Kings and emperors of fiction reveal much about popular sentiment toward Chinese monarchy and toward individual rulers of the past. The popular imagination was fascinated by their prestige, their apparendy arbitrary exercise of power for good or evil, and their leisurely and luxurious life in palaces "of gold and jade.” Analyzing in this volume die life of Sui Yang-ti in history and in fiction, Arthur W right describes die wide possibilities offered to popular fiction by the stereotype of the "bad last ruler,” a political formula ex­ ploited by incipient dynasties for almost two thousand years.58 Another popular stereotype, predominant from the T ang onward, was the bad last minister, upon whom die fall of the Sung and of the Ming was blamed, as the fall of the Han had been for centuries. Hsien-ti, the last Han emperor, is helpless. In the play Hsiao Yao Chin, those he loves most have just been massacred by Ts’ao Ts’ao; foreseeing his own abdication and years of captivity, he sings the poignant lament well known to opera lovers, in which the words, “How he humiliates Us!” (cKi kua-jen . . .) are fifteen times repeated, each time with a comparison: ". . . like a mouse in a cat's paws,” ". . . like a bird in a cage,” ". . . like a litde boat on the Yangtse.” Victim and no real hero, placed on the Dragon Throne when a child, Hsien-ti remains in his last

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years w hat he has always been, a pawn in the hands of his crafty minis­ ters: first Tung Cho, and later Ts ao Ts’ao. Aware of their crimes, he has been incapable of curbing them. Still, in this play, his rank as legiti­ m ate holder of the M andate gives him the audience’s sympathy.57 One degree higher is the last Ming emperor: his suicide lends him the aura of a tragic hero. In the play Mei Shan Hen,68 his armies having been defeated, he is abandoned by all except a faithful eunuch, and hangs himself from a tree in the im perial park after having first killed his wife and his daughter. He leaves the rebel leader a letter, w ritten in his own blood, asking protection for his subjects: "My life I give up without regret, but do spare my people.” A palace maidservant, moved by this cruel spectacle, disguises herself as the princess, hoping to attract the rebel and then m urder him. H er plan almost works: she slays his lieutenant, the Tiger General Li Hu. This play pictures the rebels as odious and idealizes loyalist devotion to the fallen dynasty. Other rulers are dismissed w ith some condescension as "muddleheaded” ( hun chiin). A typical example is the spineless Liu Ch’an, second and last ruler of Shu in the time of the Three Kingdoms, who leads an indolent life in his harem while his men defend hardpressed frontiers, and who thinks only of surrender when the enemy approaches.59 The remonstrances and noble suicide of his fifth son are not enough to open his eyes.60 Later, a captive at Wei, he "listens to music and forgets his country.”61 Popular fiction also considers as m uddle-headed T ang Hsiian-tsung and Sung Hui-tsung, two "rather bad” rulers who did not lead their dynasty to final ruin but weakened it significantly. Romantic figures, remarkable for their artistic tastes and talents, they lack moral integrity. They exhibit prim arily the passive features of the W right characterology: neglect of upright officials, favoritism tow ard corrupt officials, drunkenness, sloth, lack of personal virtue, addiction to sorcery and "heretical” religious practices, etc. They do not show the violent charac­ teristics: abuse of officials, exactions, harsh punishments, cruelty, sadism. Their self-indulgence and licentiousness escape condemnation by most authors. Hsiian-tsung appears in CKang-sheng Tien82 as a patron of the arts, the Maecenas to the poet Li Po and to the musician Li Kuei-nien, and tiie founder of the Pear Garden, the first theater school in Chinese his­ tory; but driven to exile by rebellious forces, he cannot save his beloved Yang Kuei-fei from the cruel fate he himself has brought on her by entrusting to her brother the powers of state. The Water Margin de­ scribes Sung Hui-tsung s passion for rare stones and art objects, his skill in painting and calligraphy, and his love of footbalL But, blind

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in his choice of ministers, the aesthete is unable to keep peace and order in the empire and to secure its frontiers: the corrupt administration which causes Sung Chiang’s and Fang L as revolts and invites the en­ croachments of the Chin is a consequence of the artistic ruler’s in­ eptitude. Average emperors, not being endowed with any such gifts and tastes, reveal better what seems a fundamental outlook of popular fic­ tion since Sung times: the concept of a transcendent but outwardly passive ruler. He has the Mandate of Heaven, but takes no direct part in government and lets his ministers and generals act for him. He lives in secrecy, surrounded only by women and eunuchs; men in his govern­ ment are admitted to his presence once a day at most, unless a crisis necessitates an extraordinary audience. On the stage, he appears pre­ ceded by a retinue of young court ladies. His behavior suggests that he is far above the cares and hurly-burly of the world and administra­ tive routine. This concept of monarchy is related to the Taoist ideal of wu-wei, “no intervention against Nature,” and to the Confucian theory that the ruler ensures order and harmony merely by the emanation of his Virtue, without stepping out of his palace, or even taking his hands out of his sleeves. The dramatic possibilities of such a role are obvi­ ously limited. Founders of dynasties are more spectacular figures, closer to the type of the European hero-king. The rise of an outsider, from a farm or a bandit’s lair, through constant challenges and dangers up the ladder to imperial majesty, will cover, of course, a wider range of events and pro­ vide the setting for a more colorful show than the flat career of a spoiled porphyrogenite. Here are bold spirits, men who at one point decided to burn their bridges and to plunge into the great adventure of outlawry and rebellion. They measured the stakes: success meant the glorious inauguration of a new dynasty; failure, a cruel and ignominious death, and the name (perhaps forever accursed) of rebel and usurper. They gambled. Such are Liu Pang, Liu Pei, Li Shih-min, Ch’ien Liu, Chao K uangyin, Chu Yiian-chang, and a few others. While drawing the individual features of such a man, the novel and the drama commonly give a stereo­ typed account of the principal stages of his climb to power: he starts out as a strong man charged with the protection of a local community in a period of anarchy and disorder; his tiny band of followers snowballs into an army, and he eventually takes over provinces and perhaps the whole country, in part by battles and negotiations, but also in part by a mysterious charisma which wins him the spontaneous support of all who meet him.

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The crimes and the amoral opportunism of these dynasty-founders are sometimes glossed over in fiction, but they are not concealed. Liu P a n g ungratefully permits the execution of H an Hsin, to whom, above all others, he owes his throne.63 Four centuries later, he will be punished by the disintegration of his empire into the Three Kingdoms.64 In the play Ta Tao,66 young Chao K’uang-yin, a reckless bully, is shown killing the two smiths who forged his sword; later, when on the throne, in a fit of drunkenness, he orders the beheading of Cheng En, his loyal friend and supporter, because of a well-meant remonstrance.69 These examples, and many more, illustrate the concept of the corrupting influence of supreme power. But more than crimes and corruption, popular fiction emphasizes the fundamental passivity, if not weakness, of the rulers. The founding of a dynasty is credited to Heaven’s protection of the challenger, but is directly brought about by the exploits and sacrifices of his men. Liu Pang’s army is besieged in a fortress by Hsiang Yii and on the verge of surrender because of lack of food; Liu Pang sends a double disguised as himself to Hsiang Yus camp, ostensibly to nego­ tiate a surrender, while he himself escapes in humble attire through another gate when the ruse makes the enemy less vigilant. By the time Hsiang Yii discovers his mistake, Liu Pang is already far away and safe. His double is put to a cruel death. The idea that saved Liu Pang on this occasion was not even his, but an adviser’s.67 Another play shows him as Han Kao-tsu a few years later, with his “Three Heroes,” Han Hsin, Chang Liang, and Hsiao Ho, shortly after his enthronement. To their congratulations he replies: "W ithout you I would never have suc­ ceeded.” And he is right.68 His descendant Liu Pei does not love books or serious learning, but dogs, horses, and fine clothes. He lacks initiative and his chief resource when faced with danger is tears. For some time he has been prudently devoting himself to gardening in order to appear harmless; Ts’ao Ts’ao suspects him, nevertheless, and one stormy day, to search out his character and intentions, starts a discussion about heroes. Presently he states: “The only heroes in our time are you and II” Shocked, Liu Pei lets his chopsticks drop to the floor. He is saved by luck: at that very moment there is a clap of thunder and he pretends to have been fright­ ened by it, not by Ts’ao’s words.6® H e would never dream of challeng­ ing Ts’ao to his face. In battles, he lets his men plan and fight for him; he is critically defeated in an expedition undertaken after the death of his old com­ panions and against the advice of his strategists.70 Not his own wits, but those of his adviser Chu-ko Liang, allow him to escape from the Yellow Crane Tower in which Chou Yii thought he had safely impris-

ROBERT RUHLMANN 140 oned him, and from the Sweet Dew Temple, where soldiers were lying in ambush to kill him. The play Huang Ho Lou emphasizes his pusil­ lanimity almost to the point of farce: he foresees danger and refuses repeatedly to leave; prodigies of eloquence from Chu-ko Liang are needed to convince him; then, he learns that he is supposed to proceed alone with only one bodyguard, and he refuses again.71 When his ad­ viser’s prophetic resourcefulness has turned the ambush at the temple into a fortunate and satisfying marriage, Liu Pei forgets all his duties to his country and stays with his bride for months on end, wholly intoxi­ cated by her charms, never leaving her apartments, and barely listening to his good captain Chao Yiin’s admonitions. Escaping finally, he owes the success of his flight to the ingenuity of his bride, who deceives the pursuers: he is too frightened to think.72 Dynastic founders seldom take the decisive step of claiming the throne; they are usually pushed by their followers and refuse several times before finally accepting. Moreover, refusal is not a pure formal­ ity.73 Chao K’uang-yin’s men dress him in yellow robes and cap during his drunken sleep; terrified, when he wakes up, by the lèse-majesté situation he finds himself in, he has but one way open: to accept. Yet these seemingly weak men climb to and stay in power. They attract and keep devoted followers. The inhabitants of Ching-chou follow Liu Pei in his retreat when Ts’ao’s army attacks; a pitiful column of refugees, they have voluntarily abandoned homes and possessions to cast their lot with the humane ruler.74 In this episode we see three ele­ ments: the Mencian image of people flocking to a sage king, an echo of the terror and mass flight induced by the Mongol conquest, and the power of attraction exercised by a ruler’s passivity. This power is partly explained when the passivity is viewed not as a weakness, but as wily scheming. “Cry-baby Liu Pei” (“fCu Liu Pet* is a Chinese proverb), and Sung Chiang, the “uncrowned king” of Mount Liang, rely constantly on subtle diplomacy to keep balance among their men, to play one against another, and to check strong personalities indirectly rather than openly opposing them. Liu P a n g is a monument of hypocrisy compared with his straightforward, noble, artless rival Hsiang Yü. Liu Pei, on his deathbed, slyly tests his loyal Chu-ko Liang, saying, “My son is a weakling. . . . You are a genius. . . . If he proves incapable, then take the throne yourself.” He does this only to elicit Chu-ko’s public and formal protest.76 A rational explanation does not suffice, however. In popular fiction, a supernatural atmosphere surrounds the founders. At the time of their birth, their mothers have prophetic dreams. The prince’s high destiny is announced by omens and portents: balls of fire or dragons appear in

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the air above him, or a red snake crawls in and out of his mouth, ears, and nostrils while he sleeps.76 As a boy he already shows promise of leadership: die round tree near which the young Liu Pei plays soldiers with his peasant playmates resembles the canopy of a nobleman’s car­ riage and is taken by neighbors for a sign that a great man will some day come forth from th at house.77 L ater the prince is miraculously protected in danger and war: Liu Pei’s horse leaps across a torrent impassable to his pursuers; Chao Yün rescues an infant prince from a p it while a flash of light frightens the enemy;78 a goddess hides Sung Chiang from the police who search for him, gives him a heavenly book on strategy, and later appears in a dream to advise him.70 Apparentiy writers and actors of fiction represent die typical ruler as helpless in order to underline his transcendent character, to demon­ strate that human ability needs supplementing by a mysterious charisma. This suggests a comparison between the princely hero and the conven­ tional romantic hero of love tales. The lover, too, shows an almost mor­ bid lack of initiative, and depends on others for the success of his suit. If villains or ill luck separate him from his beloved, he will languish for months without stirring to fight for his happiness, and he depends on a savior for release from his troubles: [He] is generally a quite unheroic person, . . . a scholar, with all a Chinese scholar’s disdain of physical prowess, who naturally leaves to his inferiors such matters as the rescue of fair maidens. . . . Well-educated, handsome, lack­ ing experience of the world, often weak in character, and endowed with sensi­ bility to a high degree, he is seldom capable of thinking or acting for himself and for the protection of his lady. . . . In place of the knight of western story and legend, whose life was spent in rescuing maidens in distress, there is in many Chinese tales a secondary hero whose business it is to solve the problems and difficulties of the situation and make everything easy for the hero and his lady.80 A hero’s ability to attract devotion w ithout apparent effort or spec­ tacular action is the best measure of his m erit and prestige. W hen W u Tzu-hsü flees, pursued by an evil king’s horsemen, a boatm an and a girl who have helped him on his way commit suicide before his eyes to assure him tihat his secret will not be betrayed.81 True lovers do not need to take active steps toward each other, because they are marked by predestination {yuan). Similarly, the true prince does not need to act: he and his people are also destined for each other, and the success of the men in his service is proof enough he holds the M andate. His essential gift is die ability to choose and adm inister men well, to distrib­ ute responsibilities appropriately. He must also show his men proper respect, treating his adviser as a teacher (hsien-sheng) and his swords-

ROBERT RUHLMANN 142 man as a friend. These test his will and character before tying their destiny to his.82 To sum up, popular fiction often represents its typical prince as fundamentally a weak personality, dissolute and hypocritical, and some­ thing of a figurehead. Sometimes exaggerated, this picture is probably well meant, drawn thus to enhance the prestige of ministers and fighters, and also to suggest the necessarily mysterious charisma which flows from a prince. On the stage, the prince has a noble countenance, a lowpitched voice, and the discreet gesture that traditionally belong to the kingly way. To many princely heroes of Chinese fiction, Donald Keene’s descrip* tion of Genji would apply: Genji has no need of his fists to prove his status as a hero. . . . He is a superman who breathes no fire. . . . His capacity to love, his beauty, wit and talent mark him as a hero, though he performs no heroic deeds.88 SCHOLARS

The apparent passivity of the ruler leaves the front of the stage to his men. In the imperial courts, literature finds not only some of its greatest heroes and worst villains, but also a mirror for the psychology of ordinary mankind. There the fevers of ambition, jealousy, and hatred run highest, intensified by constant proximity to fortune and ruin. An important distinction immediately appears among the rulers’ men, between the advisers and musclemen: the brains that conceive, and the arms that execute. In Chinese opera performances, these two functions have been developed into a pair of dramatically contrasted psychological types. The difference is definitely not a generic one between the man of peace and the man of war, the “soft” intellectual and the “violent” man of action. Both are men of action and of violence, normally involved in strife. They are fighters who use different weapons: the one would kill his enemy with the point of his sword, the other with the tip of his tongue or, better, of his brush. Both are equally daring and courageous, the swordsman on the battlefield, the scholar usually in court and council. Both also play indispensable and complementary parts in the great civilian enterprise of organizing society and ensuring its survival, while bringing or restoring peace and order in the world (chih kuo, p'ing tien-hsia). The adviser assesses situations, maps out plans, advises the ruler; his formalized behavior embodies norms of an orderly state and society. The muscleman is called upon when brute force has to be

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applied, when normal patterns must momentarily be discarded under pressure of some emergency; once “unleashed” by the ruler into his natural element, the free-for-all of a battlefield, he rushes forth with his troops and kills untiringly. To their different vocations correspond different psychologies and attitudes: the impetuous, rash, outspoken, and candid ways of the one set off the suave, inscrutable, and considered manner of the other. The swordsman speaks his mind, w ithout concern for the “face” of people around him, who appreciate, and sometimes resent, his frankness. The scholar manages to use men smoothly for his own ends while diplo­ matically letting them think they are deciding m atters for themselves. Before committing himself, die scholar takes tim e for reflection; the swordsman’s nature is to “kill first and talk later.” The scholar-heroes are die Chinese equivalent of our “polytropos Odysseus.” Classical anecdotes, often rew ritten into popular tales or plays, revolve around the ingenuity of these heroes and the ruses they invent to extricate themselves from dangerous predicam ents and turn defeat into victory: Lin Hsiang-ju “returns to Chao w ith the jade disc unbroken” and “gets the king of Ch’in to beat the drum”;84 Su Ch’in, a n itinerant politician of the fourth century b .c ., cleverly intrigues for the “international” alliance of the Six States against Ch’in;85 Yen-tzu the Dwarf enters the capital of Ch u through the main gate, shames into silence a rude king, and “w ith two peaches kills three giants.”86 One of the most im portant characters in the W ater Margin is another scholar, the strategist W u Yung, nicknamed “die star of much wisdom.” Never dismayed by difficult situations, he always has a plan—simple, elegant, efficient, and, if need be, treacherous. He traps enemies in snow-covered pits, tricks all kinds of useful people into joining his band, and is a m aster in tactics and the use of spies and fifth columnists.87 One of his lesser trium phs is maneuvering a caravan of pseudo-mer­ chants, ostensibly laden w ith dates b u t actually w ith drugged wine, through a mountain pass to m eet escorted wheelbarrows en route to the capital with die prim e m inister’s birthday presents. The day is hot and the escorters happily drink themselves senseless; when they awake, the presents are gone.88 “Young people should not read the W ater Margin, old people should not read the Three Kingdoms”; thus runs a Chinese proverb, meaning that the young are disposed enough to rash behavior, and the old to intrigues. The Three Kingdoms is a mine of all tricks and strategems (chi ts e ) needed in w ar and politics. By using a pretty girl—this is the mei-jen chi ruse ( “ruse de la Belle” ) th at worked so well for Hsi Shih89— W ang Yiin arouses jealousy and hatred between the dictator Tung Cho

ROBERT RUHLMANN 144 and Lü Pu, Tung’s adopted son and devoted henchman, in order to secure Lu s support in murdering Tung.90 Ts’ao Ts’ao rashly beheads his able admirals after his enemy, young Chou Yü, has cunningly encour­ aged a spy to steal a forged letter that fraudulently implicates the admirals in an imaginary plot.91 Without doubt, the keenest and most clever is Chu-ko Liang, whose name is still used proverbially as a synonym for intelligence. His career begins when, at the age of twenty-seven, he conceives a tripartition of fftinfl by exploiting the rivalry between Wei and W u which would allow Szechwan to exist as an independent “third force” and later, hope­ fully, to restore the Han dynasty a second time. He goes to ask the advisers of Wu to commit their ruler’s strength against Ts’ao Ts’ao. In a “battle of tongues” with twelve experienced and self-confident poli­ ticians, in the presence of twenty others, all hostile, the young debater, alternately moralistic, provocative, disdainful, persuasive, and ironic, always superbly aware of each opponent’s background and character, refutes all objections and shatters the opposition.92 Chu-ko is a master of all the old tricks of war and diplomacy, and ingenious at inventing new ones. He fails in his major enterprise—to reunify China—but through no fault of his own. For he anticipates his enemies’ every move, and by flattery and provocation gets the best from his warriors. He founds military farms, invents “the wooden oxen and the rolling horses,”98 uses doubles and, when necessary, blackm ail In a campaign against the aborigines in the fever-ridden mountains of the Southwest, he captures their chieftain seven times. Six times the chief claims that he has been cheated or caught by surprise; each time Chu-ko releases the chief. The seventh time, the chief surrenders, overcome more by Chu-ko’s “psychological warfare” than by his battalions.9* Most spectacular and full of suspense are the episodes in which Chuko faces opponents as subtle as himself. His resentful young ally, the jealous Chou Yii, cannot be happy as long as Chu-ko is alive, but Chu-ko escapes his repeated snares. Chu-ko promises to bring 100,000 arrows within three days; Chou Yü, believing that Chu-ko is merely boasting and will never be able to deliver the arrows, makes him pledge his head, and goes to bed charmed by the prospect of Chu-ko’s impending death. But, at dawn of the third day, a thick fog covers the Yangtze River, and Chu-ko launches twenty boats covered with straw mats toward the op­ posite bank where their common enemy Ts’ao Ts’ao is encamped. Ts’ao, fearful that he is being attacked, orders his archers to shoot at these boats which are vaguely outlined in the fog. The arrows stick in the straw, and Chu-ko returns to camp triumphant.95 Years later, because of a subordinate’s defeat, Chu-ko finds himself

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trapped in an almost defenseless fortress, with only a few old and wounded soldiers to face a huge enemy army. He quickly sees th at his only hope of salvation, at least until the expected arrival of reinforce­ ments, lies in making the enemy believe th at the fortress is full of troops. He orders the four gates opened wide and the ground in front of each swept clean as if to welcome the enemy. Standing himself on the wall, he drinks wine and plays on his lute w ith apparent unconcern. W hen Ssu-ma I appears at the head of his thousands, Chu-ko invites him to enter, and states repeatedly that the fortress is empty. The trick works: Ssu-ma suspects a snare and refuses to take the risk. Chu-ko s masterly lute playing impresses and misleads Ssu-ma because it seems to imply perfect self-control and ease of mind: "I know music! These notes would not ring so pure if he had a single care!”96 The scholar-hero has no nerves. N either good news nor bad news affects his composure; he displays neither hatreds nor affections. H e has infinite patience. He can prepare and w ait twenty years to take revenge, and, in the meantime, he smiles and talks courteously to the man on whom he intends to wreak vengeance. Knowingly, he watches and interprets others’ actions, but he seldom reveals his own feelings. Lifelong concentration helps him to hide his quick and intense sensi­ tivity under a mask of relaxed self-confidence. The impassivity which he exemplifies is a virtue traditionally ascribed to fathers, judges, and administrators in this country where uncontrolled emotional outbursts even within the family are exceptional and considered childish and un­ civilized. Scholar-heroes, however, have more than intellectual strength and self-control; they are also endowed w ith supernatural powers. They interpret dreams, deal with the other world, and m aster the forces of nature. The Pao Ch'eng of fiction is in daytime a judge of the Sung court; at night, he may have to sit in Hades to decide a difficult case for King Yen, the Chinese Yama.97 In his black robe em broidered w ith eight Trigrams in white, waving a white feather fan, Chu-ko Liang appears on the stage with some features of a Taoist magician, almost like an Im­ m ortal ( shen-hsien ) : by performing a mysterious ceremony in front of a black altar, he is able to conjure an east wind that will propel his incendiary boats against the enemy fleet;98 he reads in the stars the day set for his death and, through another black mass, almost succeeds in averting Fate.99 Although he may not have m anufactured the providen­ tial, life-saving fog on the river,100 his ability to forecast w eather accu­ rately appears supernatural. Some scholar-heroes encourage belief in vulgar superstitions, even though they themselves are unbelieving: Chu-ko Liang orders his old soldiers to open the gates of the empty fortress, notices their fright, and

ROBERT RUHLMANN 146 reassures therm *1 have twenty thousand celestial troops (shen jnng ) hidden inside.”101 The first Ming emperor also exploits the credulity of simple souls, foiling the two princes who planned to poison him that he knows of their plot because Heaven has warned him in a dream. In reality, he was informed by a spy.102 These statements are readily be­ lieved since the supernatural powers of both heroes are taken for granted. Imperfect heroes such as Chou Yii and Shen Lien, and villains such as Wang Lun and Ts’ao Ts’ao, set off the perfection of a Chu-ko Liang.108 Chou and Shen are nervous and impulsive. Wang is neurotic, unsure of himself, overly suspicious. Ts’ao Ts’ao has been built up into a monster of evil: he murders people in cold blood, terrorizes court and state by periodical mass killings, plots for the throne, torments and humiliates the emperor.104 With blatant partiality, traditional fiction charges him with “low cunning” and “treacherous perfidy,” while his rival Liu Pei is credited with “skillful dissimulation”; theatrical audiences roar with delight at the “clever stratagem” of Huang Chung who, in order to pro­ voke the enemy to battle, shoots a poisonous arrow into the back of a newly released prisoner.105 The Ts’ao of fiction lacks intelligence as well as virtue. Although his army is larger than the combined armies of the other two kingdoms, time and again he is defeated by the smaller forces, and falls into his enemies’ traps.106 Here can be seen a distinctive idea often found in Chinese tradition: moral superiority is more important and essential for success, in war as well as in other endeavors, than technical skill; that is, skills cannot be acquired until one earns them through moral cultivation. It must be observed, however, that novels and plays which condemn Ts’ao also find in him a certain greatness. The first few chapters of the Romance describe him as a clear-sighted and responsible young states­ man who acts while the intellectuals only speak.107 And it is interesting to note that on stage Ts’ao is played by a large-framed actor of imposing presence, whose face is chalk white except for two long black slits indi­ cating half-closed eyes, who speaks in a low and powerful voice and suggests boundless energy and vitality. This “perverted hero” (chien hsiung )108 might be said to be “perverted, but a hero.” The seventeenth-century commentator Mao Tsung-kang recognizes the ethical value of his open defiance of convention: The killing [by Ts’ao] of [Lü] Po-she*s family resulted from a mistairft and is excusable. But his killing of Po-she is a crime odious to the extreme, and his statement, “Rather hurt others than allow anyone to hurt mel” is even worse. All readers at this point hate him, swear at him, even wish to kill him. They do not realize that here resides [Ts’ao’s] superiority [kuo jen]. I wonder who

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on earth does not feel as he does; but who dares to voice it? Our moralizing worthies turn this sentence the other way around and say: "Rather have others hurt me than to have me ever hurt others.” This sounds nice indeed, but check their behavior: every step is a covert imitation of [Ts’ao’s] motto. He is des­ picable, but at least his heart and mouth are in accord. The hypocrisy of that bunch is worse than his carefree directness.108 Scholarly heroes and villains, of which the Chu-ko Liang and the Ts’ao Ts’ao of fiction represent two extremes, are at home in both the literary and the popular literatures of China. Their superior mental capacities and, once in a while, their supernatural talents satisfy both the sophisticated tastes and the prim itive needs which coexist in illiter­ ate as well as in learned minds. They express some of the ideals and dreams of the authors who are usually scholars themselves; they also reveal the common people’s imaginings about life in court and govern­ ment, and their mixed feelings tow ard the “father-and-m other officials.** Sometimes honest, like Pao Ch’eng, more often elegantly rapacious, like m agistrate T’eng,110 frighteningly impassive as they sit in their yamen tribunal and decree beatings and torture, always skilled in the noble art of speech and clever at arranging compromises, these representatives of law and power, who know the books so well, appear to the humble as a different hum an species, refined and formidable. SWORDSMEN

The swordsman-hero’s prim ary attribute is great bodily strength. There are times of crisis which require the use of force, and in a war die most astute planning will lead nowhere if officers and men are unable to fight better than the enemy. But the swordsmen are not merely useful auxiliaries of the princely and scholarly heroes. Their powerful muscles immediately attract attention and command respect. Kuan Yii, Chang Fei, and the heroes of the W ater Margin and of more modem novels of adventure, such as Ch’i Hsia W u I and Erh N ü Ying-hsiung Chuan, are able to lift stones weighing several hundred pounds. They are not flushed or out of breath after these exertions, and their hearts do not beat faster. Little Hsüeh Chiao is only twelve but he can hoist the stone lions standing outside his house, each weighing half a ton.111 W u Sung, when his stick breaks in two, kills a tiger with his bare hands after a fierce struggle; it takes sixty or seventy punches on the head to knock the beast out.112 Good fighters have trained for years in “m ilitary arts” ( w u-shu)t i.e., boxing and wrestling, fencing and the use of various weapons. These arts remain their favorite pastime. They also jump and climb high walls, walk on roofs, and so on, with exceptional agility. Some know how to walk under water.118

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Novels abound in detailed descriptions of fights, calling the various blows by all their technical names. The theater stages long and spec­ tacular battles and displays great skill in changing weapons from one scene to another in order to avoid any possible monotony. And the audiences’ enthusiasm for a good “military” actor ( wu-sheng or wuch'ou) has some of the features of authentic hero worship. Not content to fight well and bravely, the true swordsmen-heroes add to their prowess the spice of an often humorous bravura, crowning serious action with an aura of playful art. Kuan Yü in a war volunteers to kill the enemy general, rushes out and decapitates him, then brings the head back to camp, all in such a short time that the cup of wine he left there is still warm.114 Chang Fei with twenty scouts patrols a walled city occupied by the Yellow Turbans, intent on provoking them into battle; when he grows tired of waiting under the hot sun for them to come out, he takes a bath in the moat with his men under a barrage of arrows falling like rain.11® Another time, left behind with a rear guard to cover the retreat of Liu Pei, he destroys a bridge and stands alone, fiercely defiant, facing Ts’ao’s troops. His dark face shines, his bulging eyes blaze, his hair and bushy beard stand on end as he shouts, “Here is Chang I-tel Who wants a fight to die death? Come onl Come on!” At this the enemy flees in terror.11* Chang’s twelfth-century counterpart Li K’uei, to save the life of his chieftain Sung Chiang, on the very day set for his public beheading in Chiang-chou city, gives the signal to his companions hidden in the crowds by leaping, stark naked, from a roof into the execution square, brandishing two batde axes.117 These heroes show the same courage in resisting pain as in fighting battles. Suffering from an old wound, Kuan Yii accepts his surgeon’s decision to cut open his arm and scrape the bone: the bloody operation is performed dinring a drinking feast and Kuan Yii continues talking and playing chess as if nothing were happening.118 And Wu Sung, when he is to receive the “customary” hundred blows on entering prison, refuses to be held down during the punishment and boasts that he will not utter one cry. He even challenges the jailers to strike harder.119 Outspoken bluntness and a volcanic temper characterize most swordsmen-heroes in popular fiction. They are obtuse, guileless, child­ ish, belligerent, tempestuous, irascible, devoid of manners, and com­ pletely uninhibited. They boast and quarrel as a pastime, and occasion­ ally kill by mistake. Chang Fei stubbornly refuses to open the city gate to his sworn brother coming back from years of captivity because he suspects him of treason, and he will let the poor man perish under the arrows of his pursuers without giving him a chance to explain his inno­ cence.120 Li K’uei too readily believes slanderous reports against his

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chieftain Sung Chiang and rushes to kill him forthwith.121 An ever­ present menace to the neighborhood, the swordsman indulges in a kind of behavior that is frowned upon among ordinary men. He eats and drinks to excess, threatening to break everything in the house if more wine is not forthcoming. Once intoxicated, he brawls like a thug, often on the silliest pretexts. Lu Ta bullies monks into eating m eat against their vows.122 D runk one w inter night, W u Sung takes a dislike to a dog and pursues it, knife in hand, along a brook, stumbling and falling twice into the icy water, where he is caught by some men he has pre­ viously insulted and beaten.123 Why are these raving bullies still so loved by their companions and by the devotees of fiction? First, because they are honest and straight­ forward in a world in which persons officially vested w ith authority prefer the devious approach. W ith them one knows where one stands. Their friendships, bom in the street, in wineshops, or in other humble places, are disinterested, spontaneous alliances of congenial souls. They are totally indifferent to money and will not take a penny of w hat is not theirs. They do not fawn and flatter, and nothing can make them shift their loyalty. All deserve the nickname “Do-or-die,” bestowed on Shih Hsiu, one of their number. They are resolute men, always ready to lay down their lives for their friends, never willing to surrender or to let themselves be curbed or humiliated. Muscle play brings them a natural exhilaration, their strength and courage lead to a careless self-confi­ dence, their crude jokes reveal a robust sense of humor, and their whole m anner exudes joie de vivre. They have all the companionable qualities th at are subsumed in the phrase hao-han, “good fellow.” Impulsive generosity is their most likable trait. One day Chang Fei, w ith angry curses, orders a prisoner beheaded. “All right! Have me p u t to death,” says the prisoner calmly, “but why get nervous about it?” Delighted by this sang-froid, Chang Fei sets the man free and asks him to join his staff.124 Often a crafty scholar takes advantage of a swordsman's big-heartedness. Spectators look up to the former, bu t give their sympathy to the latter. They love Chang Fei and Li K’uei as one loves children, admiring their open defiance of authority and regretting th at real life gives adults so few opportunities to act as they do. As m ight be expected, the hao-han are little interested in women. “They waste no time in amorous dalliance, but conserve their energies for feats of valor.”125 Following traditional theories on yin-yang and on cultivating ones vitality ( yang-sheng),126 they believe their training in boxing to be incompatible with other claims on their energy. One of the unfaithful wives in the W ater Margin starts an affair with a monk

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because her husbsnd, too interested in gymnastics, spends Ins nights at the yamen barracks and leaves her alone.127 Outlaws and rebels are potential heroes in all literatures: even with­ out a just cause, they have a glamour of their own when they are daring and true to themselves; and if they are victims of official injustice, or justification is added to their glamour. Their controversial situation and the immediate danger in which they involve those who help them (or who merely fail to report them to the authorities) force the common people to take sides: no neutrality or indifference remains possible. Everybody is concerned; outlaw and rebel become consummate heroes or villains. This division of public opinion into two camps may separate friends or members of the same family—a splendid source of dramatic interest for poetry, novels, and the theater. Chinese fiction has no inherent predisposition against the govern­ ment and in favor of rebels, or vice versa. The “three musketeers” and the “five rats”128 who help put down the revolt of the Prince of Hsiangyang, as well as Huang Tien-pa, who catches bandits for his detective master Shih Kung,129 are well-loved heroes of law and order; but no less admired are the 108 robbers whose case die W ater Margin presents so convincingly: Unscrupulous, defiant, stem as the fates, but true in covenant and brave in conflict, these men and women are not of the smiling, temperate, human sort; they are terrible: beings of the cave and die mountain den. Their implacable demand . . . for a justice which the law is too feeble and too corrupt to give underlines the cruelties and oppressions of an age when right is defense­ less and authority takes die side of the wrong-doer.180 The Water Margin is a classic text for motivational research into Chinese revolutionary movements. Its heroes are not asocial or mal­ adjusted psychopaths. They had no desire to rebel in the first place, and would have been happy members of a normal c o m m u n ity . Some of them are the innocent victims of frame-ups; others have run to the de­ fense of the weak without reflecting how heavy their fists could be; most go spontaneously to face trial at the official yamen. They only repair to the “greenwood,” to the “rivers and lakes” ( Chinese terms correspond­ ing to the Corsican “maquis”), when a bitter experience convinces them that there is no other way to survive. Many rebels in Chinese history, successful and unsuccessful alike, claimed the right, im p lic itly asserted by Mencius, to revolt against an evil ruler. It may seem timid of die Water Margin to hold the administration, not the emperor, responsible for die prevalence of corruption, but the novel is truly radical in its assumption that the society of the oudaws is more authentically Con-

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fucian than orthodox society181—indeed, that in the sorry circumstances of the time the mountain lair of the robbers is the only place men can behave like Confucian gentlemen ( chiin-tzu ). In this light their motto, "Accomplish the W ay for Heavenl” ( T i t’ien hsing too), a typical rebel slogan, is a proud challenge to im perial authority and a claim to inter­ pret the will of Heaven—in short, to act on absolute standards. Against a system th at is looked upon as betraying the fundam ental "Confucian” values, the outlaws of M ount Liang have recourse to an inner truth and a higher allegiance. Their common purpose is symbolized by the oath of brotherhood they all take. The day after they first meet, the three heroes of the Three Kingdoms take a similar oath: "We were not bom the same year, the same month, the same day, b u t we swear to die the same year, the same month, the same day.”132 Instead of the normal types of loyalties be­ tween prince and subject, lord and vassal, father and son, which can be called vertical, the oath of brotherhood, found in all secret societies, establishes between swordsmen a bond of horizontal loyalties. These brotherhoods of swordsmen have always, as have the “parties” and "cliques” {tang, pyeng) among scholars, been resented by the monar­ chy as an intolerable threat to itself.133 Liu Pei, Kuan Yii, and Chang Fei themselves were standing on the side of the law at the time of their oath, and their common will was to fight the Yellow Turbans, a rebel movement; yet their oath as recorded in fiction has made them patrons of illegal societies for centuries. It would be farfetched to regard the Three Kingdoms as a novel of rebellion, cleverly camouflaged by its Yellow Turbans episode into a tale of devotion to the Han throne. But the fact remains that the very formulation of the heroes’ solemn vow indicates its priority over other loyalties, including those professed at the same time, and therefore contains the germ of rebellion. The novel is from the beginning spun around the founding of a new dynasty. The hsia, or “adventurer,” does not openly challenge the govern­ m ent as the rebel does. His calling is to break laws, not to question their validity. By killing or other unconventional means, he acts where legal action is bound to fail, for example in cases when his adversaries have won immunity by bribery or intimidation. He puts, loyalty to his friends above all, to the extent of ignoring his natural duties toward state and ruler as well as tow ard his parents: he is a virtual rebel against the established order. Bold and self-reliant, he is prepared to sacrifice his peace and happiness and, if necessary, his very life. He can also, thanks to his extraordinary strength and agility, escape capture repeat­ edly ancLlive for years in the wilderness with the wind and rain as his companions.

ROBERT RUHLMANN 152 Traditional fiction, however, requires somewhat more of him before his lawbreaking can be idealized into chivalric heroism. The wicked acrobats who break into people’s houses at night to steal their valuables or seduce their daughters134 do not seem to qualify as genuine hsia, nor do the perverted prizefighters who impose their unwanted “protection” on tradespeople135 or who rob travelers on deserted highways, some­ times lulling them, slicing them up, and selling their flesh in the form of what might be called “manburgers” ( jen-jou pao-tzu ) ,138 Directing one’s skill toward criminal ends can be an overpowering temptation, but vic­ timizing the helpless is all too easy a job. The “good” swordsman is tested through tougher trials and fights adversaries whose strength at least matches his. Moreover, he is not hired or paid for his prowess, and does not expect personal profit or advantages out of i t The typical hsia is depicted as a savior of the weak, a man who embraces their cause when they cannot or dare not defend themselves, and does it gratui­ tously, solely for the sake of justice ( cheng-tang ). The people he saves are not his relatives, and they may well be total strangers; he thus de­ serves the appellation “chivalric” (i), which signifies behavior beyond the limits of strict duty. Playful thefts, robberies committed against the rich and the mighty, flogging of corrupt officials,137 and other such deeds are winked at by fiction in direct proportion to the selflessness of the perpetrator’s motive; murder itself is judged by the same standard. Storytellers and playwrights reserve their full blessing for violence on behalf of unknown victims,138 and for disinterested vengeance pursued for the benefit of others, such as the assassination of Wang Liao, “tyrant” of Wu, by Chuan Chu,139 and the unsuccessful attem pt of Ching K’o against the life of the First Emperor, then King of Ch’in. In each of these two instances, the hsia has been noticed by a prince in distress who has treated him as an equal and convinced him of the justice of his cause: these are further examples of “horizontal” loyalty. The themes underlying their stories in fiction of recent centuries have their roots in very ancient times. In his chapter on “wandering adventurers” (yu-hsia, often translated “knights-errant”) and in other chapters of his history, Ssu-ma Ch’ien140 describes the peculiar status of political assassins and the armies of “guests” kept by certain feudal lords of the Warring States period. He notes that the true hsia cannot be bought for money, but that one meets them on a footing of equality and must convince them of the importance, patriotic or other, of the crime expected of them. While pointing out how much the hsia’s achievements shocked Confucians and Legalists alike, Ssu-ma underlines the honorable side of the “have sword, will travel” specialists of ancient China: “The words are

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reliable, their deeds effective; once they have given their word, they stick to it.”141 Scholars, it is implied, are more skilled at diplomatic com­ promises and at cautious evasions. No society leaves its members wholly free to question its basic rules and to act according to their own judgment. Yet folklore all over the world glorifies noble-hearted outlaws such as Robin Hood, Rozsa Sandor, the "bandits corses,” or the Chinese hsia. The place of rebels and hsia in Chinese fiction is to be understood in relation to a recurrent, if unofficial, institution, th at of the private guards hired by merchants and village notables for escorting goods and for help in other businesses requiring manu militari handling. Called “guests” and enjoying a status above that of servants or employees, these boxers and fighters rise, w ith their “hosts,” to positions of local im portance each time that insecurity of any kind threatens the peace in die vicinity: wars, foreign invasions, natural catastrophes, or economic and social collapse cause the common people to turn toward local strong men for protection against bandits, plundering troops, and rapacious officials. Holders of these incipient lordships and their “guests” thus constitute power nuclei w ith which the authorities have to reckon, and which may grow to august propor­ tions: some dynasties have begun w ith far fewer than 108 men! The Romance of the Three Kingdoms realistically shows Chang Fei, a wellto-do farm er ( a butcher in some plays ) offering a feast to the young men of his village in order to enroll them into his sworn brothers’ band. The band is then given horses, gold, and iron by traveling merchants.142 A bid for the empire begins in this way! A private guard turned into a soldier of the government by accidents of disorder and w ar found himself feared by the average peasant at the beginning and at the end of his typical career, b u t experienced in be­ tween, when greater dangers made him appear as a protector instead of a menace, a time of popularity. The hsia of fiction, nonprofit champion of the underdog, is, I suggest, an idealized image of this interm ediatestage swordsman. After Ssu-ma Ch’ien, no official history contains a chapter on the hsia. Since the virtues of the hsia are seen as appropriate for times of disorder and aberrant in times of peace and good government, it is in direct proportion to national disunity and public unrest th at the hsia’s prestige grows in literature and that his distance from the common robber widens. Government pressure, as reflected in die banning or edulcorating of subversive books and plays, is also most effective in periods of maximum law and order. Typical instances in Ch mg dynasty works conçem the tam ed swordsmen who serve on the side of the law.14*

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Here the sympathies of fiction and of its consumers go rather to the cops than to the robbers: that was not the case with the W ater Margin. KUAN YÜ, A COMPOSITE HERO

The fact that the hsia and the rebels in literature are so easily admired sets up a critical moral dilemma. On the one hand, heroic stories and hero worship make virtue attractive; on the other hand, stories that exalt heroism encourage strong personalities to ignore die laws, to seek the autonomy of the hero, and to espouse his unorthodox ways. Confucians in particular felt strongly that the heroic code of honor was detrimental to respect for family ties and for authority. As administrators and judges, they were bound to resent stories such as those of Hsiao En taking justice into his own hands by k illin g the local squire, of the Mount Liang robbers h a n d in g together against the government Of course they recognized the deep-rooted popularity these stories enjoyed and knew from expe­ rience that suppressing them was an impossible task. Besides, there was an advantage in letting dissatisfied souls discharge their aggressive en­ ergies in the imaginary arena of the heroes’ misfortunes and revenges. But as men responsible for raising and refining the people s ethical stand­ ards, the Confucians at the same time recognized some of the basic values which inspired this kind of fiction, and sympathized to a large extent with die aspirations it expressed. After all, the Confucians them­ selves were not immune to conflicts of loyalty; they often sought guid­ ance on such questions as what to do when duty to father and ruler came into conflict. Moreover, die most enlightened Confucians probably realized that, despite appearances, the hsia of fiction contributed more to social sta­ bility than to subversion. Hsia commonly flourished in troubled times, when the normal, vertical relationships were upset in any case, and their moral transgressions amounted to no more than a daring readiness to cope with issues beyond the immediate power of die established hierar­ chies. Finally, they set in motion new political constellations which organized local peasantry for work and taxation along more or less tra­ ditional lines, and which could ultimately be brought back into a lawful framework through the legitimation process which novels call chao-an (“calling to peace”), i.e., letting rebels rally to the side of the govern­ ment and admitting them into the regular army.144 It was easier, of course, for Confucians to accept die “good” heroes— men explicitly committed to values such as i (“selflessness,” “generous behavior beyond duty”) and chung (“loyalty”)—than to accept wild, uninhibited bandits whose example could exercise a dangerous influence

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on public mores. Loyalty of almost any description could be interpreted as exemplifying the virtue of loyalty to the emperor and the proper authorities. This explains the evolution of the official worship of Kuan Yii, a hero of popular tradition, and his build-up into a universally ac­ cepted paragon of virtue. The biography and the character of the historic Kuan Yii emerge clearly in the History of the Three Kingdoms, w ritten about fifty years after his death,14“ and in the fifth-century commentary to this history. First an outlaw, then a bodyguard of Liu Pei, he became a general and governor of a province, and died in battle after an eventful career of adventure and war. H e was haughty, extremely brave, unshakably faith­ ful to his lord. Ts’ao Ts’ao once captured him in a battle and tried vainly to win him over with lavish presents. Beginning in T ang times, poetry and fiction magnify the historic facts into mythical proportions, and add many hues to an already colorful picture: a story of righteous homicide rationalizes his outlaw origins, and vivid details enrich various moments of his life, especially his now naïve, now ingenious resistance to the tem ptations engineered by Ts’ao,146 his "lone sword” meeting w ith the men of Wu,147 and his tragic death.148 As Kuan Yii’s stature grows in storytelling and drama, he assumes an increasing im portance both in popular religion and in the official cult. Miracles and apparitions mark his high rank in the O ther W orld. H e becomes the most potent aide in evoking spirits and exorcizing devils, and becomes the god protector of actors, who call him, with a respectful familiarity, Lao-yeh ("our old Lord”) and honor him w ith a backstage shrine. His role is played with unique and spectacular solemnity, as a god and not as a man. Meanwhile, he has been awarded posthumous titles—ducal, princely, and imperial—by Sung and Ming edicts, and, from Yiian times on, he has replaced Chiang Tai-kung as the official god of warriors. Ch’ing emperors order him worshiped in thousands of temples ( Kuan Ti Miao ) and, in the m idst of their struggle against the Taipings (1856), decree him the equal of Confucius. From the K’anghsi reign onward, official committees of scholars compile successive editions of his hagiography.149 They hold him up as the incarnation of loyalty (chung) and stress his undeviating devotion to his lord in a period of anarchy when it would have been easy for him to set up a kingdom for himself as others did. The obvious political intent of these efforts was to indoctrinate the populace in loyalty and submission to authority, even as the “Twentyfour Filial Sons”160 were used to inculcate submission to the head of the family. Kuan Yii literature reveals many of the ways in which NeoConfucians sought to couple “loyalty” (chung) and “filial submission”

ROBERT RUHLMANN 156 (hsiao). Yet it also exemplifies the conflicts which arise between the two moral imperatives. In times of crisis loyalty to one's prince may conflict with loyalty to principle or to country as well as with ones obligations to one’s parents. Kuan Yu s example could encourage hesitating officials and soldiers to serve an apparently doomed dynasty against attractive challengers. But perplexing tensions also emerge from his hagiography. The hero once spares a fallen enemy who defects to his side and there­ after remains loyal.161 Is this sort of generosity in war always to be approved by those responsible for the state? Another time, Kuan Yii captures Ts’ao Ts’ao and releases him unmolested.162 Does this not mean that by settling a personal debt in this way, he has allowed the arch­ enemy of his prince to fight on and continue to menace the state which Kuan Yii serves? The resourceful panegyrists of Kuan Yii do not deny this episode: they find involved explanations and excuses to justify it. The story of the warrior hero Kuan Yii—part swordsman, part scholar, with princely characteristics168—illustrates the interaction of folklore and institutionalized religion. It demonstrates how fiction was affected by the state worship of one of its heroes and, conversely, how die popu­ larity of a hero of fiction encouraged his officially managed apotheosis as a model of exemplary behavior. But the primary virtue—loyalty—that Kuan Yii is supposed to exem­ plify soon appears as a knot of multiple loyalties, a knot that easily becomes an impossible tangle. Kuan Yii’s story shows how difficult it is to serve simultaneously parents, friends, prince, country, and justice. Despite the efforts of official hagiographers, this heroic figure has all the complexity of life. The heroes we have considered seem reducible to three types: the impetuous, uninhibited, and generous Swordsman, a lovable and explo­ sive “good fellow”; the Scholar, of outstanding intelligence, resourceful­ ness, eloquence, and self-control, “knowing all knowable things and some others,” whose powers of reading minds, of seeing into the future, of influencing the forces of nature have a supernatural cast; and the Prince, holder of Heaven’s mandate, who does nothing spectacular him­ self, but is skilled in judging men and in choosing the Scholars and Swordsmen who will enable him to fulfill his destiny. To what extent are they Confucian? Some of them behave like saints in the Books, and exemplify the correct Confucian ways of playing vari­ ous roles in society; others carry to extremes the selfish ways of ordinary men, subtle or brutal, with an instinctive disdain for the weakling “givein {fang) morality of the herd, with a passion for avenging offenses despite the law. One will find, among the first group, sage rulers and

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loyal subjects, loving parents and filial children, devoted friends, who promote the Confucian ideals of an enlightened humanism and of the general welfare of society. One also finds, on the other hand, tyrannical emperors whose rule reeks of Legalism and self-indulgence. Among die scholars there are cynics and hypocrites who use their cleverness to flaunt common morals. There are gangs of robbers in the woods, rebel­ lious masses, and men whose passions lead them into orgies of indis­ criminate killing and destruction. W e have noted the officially managed apotheosis of one hero, and we can see the effects of Confucian indoctrination in countless situations and characters. W e have mentioned the pressure of censorship on w rit­ ers, publishers, and actors, particularly in die later dynasties. It is not surprising, therefore, th at no novel or play direcdy challenges the privi­ leged position of the "gentry” or ventures to idealize the merchant, the immemorial object of Confucian scorn and discrimination. But factors were at work which lim ited the effort to make fiction an instrum ent of social control, a servant of an official orthodoxy. One was simply the dem and of audiences and readers for verisim ilitude—for believable human situations and conflicts. Such a demand m eant that fiction had to be peopled with recognizable characters and not simply with positive and negative exemplars. The second factor is more complex. The Con­ fucian tradition itself sanctioned behavior in periods of crisis th at it would heavily censure in an age of peace. The swordsman-hero in par­ ticular had the moral right to lead others in revolt against corrupt gov­ ernment. His behavior suggested that wisdom and goodness is present in all people and th at the difference between a Confucian gentleman ( chiin-tzu ) and a common person ( hsiao-jen ) was a moral, not a social one. Once his moral raison d être is established, the swordsman, in the hands of novelists, storytellers, and playwrights, takes on characteristics which make him the object of delighted adm iration on the p art of the common folk, and disdain or alarm on the p art of staid conformist Confucians. Thus all efforts to “Confucianize” fiction rem ained only partly suc­ cessful. It is this relative freedom th at keeps fiction close to the common life of China through many centuries, thus providing us with vivid in­ sights into die hopes, the desires, the hates and affections of innum erable generations. The scholarly use of fiction for the purposes of social his­ tory will help us penetrate the veil of myth perpetuated in the vast corpus of official historical writing.

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Yang Kuang (569-618), who ruled as Yang-ti of the Sui, is of interest to the student of Chinese history and civilization in a num­ ber of ways. First of all, he is an interesting historical figure in his own right. He was the second and last ruler of a dynasty which success­ fully brought to an end China’s longest period of disunity and laid many of the institutional foundations of the empires that followed; a gifted and brilliant man whose fate it was to bring himself and his empire to spectacular ruin. Second, he has his place in the history of Chinese political thought, as the "bad last” ruler par excellence, one in a long sequence of negative exemplars reaching back to Chou Hsin, the last ruler of Shang, and Chieh, the last king of Hsia. In this role he has been stereotyped by the conventions of moralistic history; his per­ sonality and behavior have been reduced to a collection of attributes and qualities which later monarchs would do well to study and ab­ jure. Third and last, he figures as a perennial stock villain in folk myth and popular literature—a wretch whose spectacular vices long titillated the readers of fiction and sent thrills of horrified delight through peasant audiences gathered round storytellers and rural dramatic troupes. These three roles suggest the principal divisions of th is paper. First, I shall attempt to sift the evidence and present an interpretation of the historical personality of Yang-ti; a more detailed study will appear at a later date. Second, I shall analyze Yang-ti as the political stereotype of the depraved last ruler. Third, I shall attem pt to describe the stock villain, the Yang-ti of popular myth and story. An undertaking of this kind is beset by many problems. It is not easy to discern historical reality behind the moralistic ornament and evaluative verbiage of Confucian historical writing. To come up (in this instance) with something resembling a h u m a n being of the sixth

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and early seventh century, we m ust read between the lines, sensing the orthodox historian’s subtle suppressions of evidence, some of them con­ scious, some probably unconscious. Buddhist writings and fragments of unofficial literature help us. So do some of the insights of m odem psychology. But the fact remains that the basic source for this period, the Sui-shu, was w ritten under the succeeding dynasty of T ang, which specifically ordered its official historians to record the history of the Sui in such a way as to explain its dram atic fall from the heights of power and unequivocably justify the T ang succession. The closeness of these historians to the events they recorded m ade a fair appraisal of the Sui not only difficult but politically dangerous. Yet we should not regard these men as time-serving fabricators of evidence. Two principles of Chinese historiography operated to make their writing of history some­ thing far more complex than an opportunistic response to political pressure. One was the historian’s obligation to w rite an accurate ac­ count, for only from such an account could posterity learn the lessons of history. The other was the assumption th at historical truth, when told, would automatically carry a moral message; when a historian rejected an item th at did not support his moral convictions, he felt that he was merely sifting out an item of untruth. It is in histories w ritten from this point of view th at we seek the historical personality of Yang-ti. The political stereotype is easier to discern than the historical per­ sonality. The stereotype emerges in the final judgments which the T an g historians pass on this ruler; it is reiterated in political essays and discussions, in memorials to the throne, in all writings which generalize about the rise and fall of dynasties and about the sorts of men who bring dynasties to ruin. It is fully intelligible only when placed within the traditional characterology of the bad last ruler. W e shall attem pt to see tiie stereotype w ithin th at context. The popular figure can be built up out of the tales and stories which have been read and drawn on from the early T ang until yesterday. H ere too some attention m ust be paid to the literary conventions which governed the formation of the type. W hat did a popular audience ex­ pect of its villains, especially of its im perial villains? Was the purpose in presenting Yang-ti as villain wholly to entertain or partly for moral instruction? Further, we m ust recognize that the purpose in various literary presentations varied w ith the changing times and the shifting outlook of various writers. W hen we have seen something of these three avatars of Yang-ti, we may ask w hat the relations among them were. W hat can we say about the^relation of political stereotype to historical personality? D id the political stereotype—the particular property of the literate elite—

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pass over unchanged to become the stock villain of popular tales? Or did the popular figure—or the sources for its portrayal—influence the work of the historians and moralists? These questions bear on the fundamental question of the relations between elite and peasant cul­ tures within Chinese civilization. Perhaps this study may at least help in the exploration of this broader problem. THE PERSONALITY OF SUI YANG-TI

Yang Kuang, the future Yang-ti, was bom in 569, the second son of a twenty-eight-year-old Northern Chou official and his non-Chinese wife. The unexpected and meteoric rise of his father, who proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty in 581, need not be described here,1 except in terms of its probable effects on the formation of the child’s character. In the first place the Yang family came suddenly to imperial power in a time of great tension and uncertainty, emerging through a nightmare sequence of murder, treachery, and intrigue. They were uneasy of their imperial honors, fearful lest a sudden turn of fortune’s wheel should displace them, suspicious of old friends and trusted ad­ visers, avid of supernatural reassurances from all sources: Buddhist monks, Taoist adepts, sycophantic courtiers. Perhaps more important, their rise to power immediately made their children key political pawns in the predatory struggle for power and wealth which went on around the throne. Their father, burdened by the herculean tasks of reuniting a China that had been culturally and politically divided for nearly three cen­ turies, was wracked by insecurity. On more than one occasion he flew into a rage and beat an official senseless in the throne hall. He regu­ larly sought spiritual solace from Buddhist monks, and was relentless in his demand for favorable portents. He was intensely parsimonious; he would not permit himself or his family to enjoy the luxuries of su­ preme power lest the gods who had raised them up should jealously strike them down.2 He threw himself into state affairs, great and sm alldrudgery which was an anodyne to his fears and his sense of hubris. Further, his dependence on his strong-minded wife—which makes him the most notoriously henpecked emperor in Chinese history—also sug­ gests his basic insecurity. All these traits made him a suspicious, tyran­ nical, and fickle parent; and none of his defects were offset by the character of his consort. The Empress Tu-ku was the daughter of a Toba noble who had served the Northern Chou, fallen into disfavor, and been obliged to commit suicide.* The future empress saw at first hand the horrors of the Northern Chou court under the mad ruler Yü-wen Pin (among

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other things, his savagery at one point threatened the life of her daugh­ te r). From that time on she was close to her husband at each hazard­ ous stage of his rise to power, and she remained his close confidante until her death in 602. She was in some respects a typical northern woman of the period: harsh, puritanical, a fanatical monogamist, a sharp and economical household manager;4 she was also meddlesome, vindictive, and insanely jealous. Chao 1 considers her the most jealous of the palace women of Chinese history.5 She m eddled constantly in her children s affairs, spying upon their private lives, criticizing their extravagance, censuring their habits, intervening whenever she detected any deviation from her rigid standards. H er second son, Yang Kuang, was her darling, the special object of her cloying solicitude, the bene­ ficiary of her jealous intrigues. These two neurotic parents dominated the youth of the future Yang-ti and of his brothers and sisters. Both parents were devout Bud­ dhists; their children were given Buddhist childhood names ( hsiaotzu ) .6 Sutra readings took place daily at the palace; the princes all had their clerical mentors, and became patrons of temples or of pious works.7 The young Yang Kuang, it is said, was handsome, perceptive, im­ pulsively generous to his attendants, fond of study, and good at literary composition.8 Although this description smacks of the biographical cliché, Yang Kuang did indeed display an impressive literary virtu­ osity in later life, and something of the other qualities as well. W e know nothing of his early reading or intellectual interests, but we may infer from his later writings th at he developed a wide acquaintance w ith Chinese literature and Buddhist scriptures. His political apprenticeship began early in 581 when, at the age of twelve, he was made Prince of Chin and governor of Ping-chou—a post w ith general responsibility for the defense of the northern frontier.9 His father appointed trusted older men to guide the young prince. In the same year the emperor sought a bride for him among the royal princesses of the small southern satellite state of Liang.10 The oracles dictated die choice, but the young prince was m arried to a woman he came to love and resp ect She is said to have been studious, literary, and of compliant disposition, and to have been esteemed by her fatherin-law the emperor. This m arriage to a southern princess was perhaps Yang Kuang’s first introduction to the culture of South China. N ature and history had combined, by the last quarter of the sixth century, to produce a culture south of the Yangtse which was strikingly different from th at of the north. The land was green and beautiful, the climate benign; living was easier than it was in the dry plains of the north. The Chinese who

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had settled there in the centuries of disunion had developed a way of life which was more leisurely, more elegant, and more sensuous than the life of the north under its succession of barbarian overlords.11 And despite centuries of political weakness and ineptitude, the southern dynasties claimed “legitimate” descent from the great Empire of Han and proprietorship of all the orthodox traditions in literature, music, and the arts. The culture of the south proved irresistibly attractive to Yang Kuang—the son of parents whose values and manners epitomized the harsh uncouth culture of the north. Yang Kuang’s fondness for southerners and southern ways later became almost an obsession, very like die perennial Northern European infatuation with die culture of the Mediterranean world.12 Like some of the Germanic rulers he resembled, he participated in the conquest of the region he had come to love. In 589 he moved in a command position with the Sui forces toward the long-planned conquest of the Ch’en, the last of the “legitimate” dynasties of the south. So far as we know, this was the prince’s first trip into the Yangtse valley and below; it may well have had a strong influence on the development of his character and his policies. When the Ch’en empire fell to the north­ ern invaders, the tasks to be faced were formidable: first, military occu­ pation and pacification; second, the integration of the southern areas and populations into the new ecumenical empire of Sui. In 591 the young prince succeeded his brother Chiin as viceroy of the south, with his capital at Yang-chou.18 There he began the work of mollifying southern opinion, of governmental reorganization—of, in short, making the rich areas of the south an integral part of the Sui empire—an enter­ prise which was to occupy him for the next nine years. One of his first acts as viceroy was to summon to his capital Chih-i, the founder of the Tien-t’ai sect and the outstanding southern Bud­ dhist leader of the time. There, on December 14, 591, in the midst of a splendid assembly of monks, the young prince knelt to receive from the great monk the “Bodhisattva vows” for lay Buddhists, and the reli­ gious name of Ts ung-chih p’u-sa, “Bodhisattva of Absolute Control.”1* In Yang Kuang’s continuing relations with Chih-i and the clerical com­ munities of the south, strands of personal and political interest on both sides are interwoven with religious feelings and aspirations. The prince, as the representative of Sui power, was interested in reassuring south­ ern Buddhists, both lay and clerical, who had recently been loyal sub­ jects of the old Ch’en dynasty. As I have shown elsewhere, it was Sui policy to use Buddhism to knit together the long divergent polities and societies of north and south; the viceroy’s acts were consistent with that policy. The southern clerics, for their part, saw in the prince a powerful

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patron and a rising political figure whose favor m ight be of long-term im portance for their faith. Yang Kuang became die donor and patron of temples and shrines, the sponsor of innum erable pious projects. His discipleship to Chih-i and his successors at T ien -t ai is fully recorded in the pages of the Kuo-ch’ing Pai-lu. Through the ornate rhetoric of diese documents glimmers something of Yang Kuang s Buddhist faith. H e appears to have been widely read in Buddhist literature, and particularly versed in the Lotus sutra; he was committed to the M ahayana vision of salvation and to the T ien-t’ai interpretation of i t He recognized the deep conflict between Buddhist religious ideals and the exercise of power in a worldly kingdom. At the same tim e he could visualize himself as a Buddhist ruler, commanding the reverence and loyalty of all the Buddhists of the realm. W hen his m aster presented him w ith a Bodhisattva chaplet, he wrote in his letter of thanks: As to the making of the present chaplet, its conception appears to be de­ rived from divine will, and its design is comparable to a work of Maudgälyayäna. The wonder of its workmanship excels the artistry of the mason of Ying. . . . A chaplet does honor to the wearer. With formal solemnity, I fitted it to my head; kneeling to receive it, I wore it upon my head. As I looked in a hand mirror, and walked back and forth, it seemed to flatter my homely face; adding grace, it changed my appearance. . . ,15 H e goes on in this letter and elsewhere in these documents to pledge himself to uphold and spread the teachings of Buddha both in private life and in the exercise of power. In all these expressions, there is a mixture of sentim ent and calculation: sincere religious feelings linked to a deep self-love; a genuine regard for the great cleric who was his m aster compounded w ith a desire to win over southern Buddhists and dem onstrate his religious zeal for the benefit of his pious parents. His tenure as viceroy was thus a period of deepening association w ith Buddhism. But he by no means neglected the southern traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. H e drew to his southern capital repre­ sentatives of both and displayed himself as an im partial patron of all the best in the culture of the south.16 These years as viceroy undoubt­ edly strengthened his ties w ith the south and w ith southerners; many of the palace confidants of his viceregal days accompanied him to Ch’ang-an when he became crown prince and then emperor, and the official appointments of his reign—as well as his later preference for southern generals—may be explained in p art by the alliances th at he formed in these years. W hile he m ust have given close attention to the immense work of reconstruction and reorganization which ultim ately transformed the

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south into a productive and loyal part of the Sui empire, he did not neglect his relations with his parents in Chang-an. It is said that when he went to take leave of his mother just before starting for his new post in 591, he found her in a rage at the extra-marital activities of the crown prince, whom she suspected of poisoning his consort; and that she be­ came maudlin over her favorite son’s departure for a distant post. This interview, say the chroniclers, left Yang Kuang with the impression that it would be possible to eliminate his elder brother and replace him as crown prince.17 In the distant south he could live as he pleased, far from his parents’ suspicious prying. And, in his frequent visits back to report to the emperor, he was a model of pious and proper deport­ ment. His earnest patronage of Buddhism in the south, his devotion to the noted cleric Chih-i, his many public wishes for the well-being of his parents, his frugal and decorous behavior in Ch’ang-an, all served to ingratiate hinn further with the emperor and empress. It is hard to say just what touched off Yang Kuang’s imperial ambi­ tions. The environment in which he grew up, die adulation of his mother, die self-serving flattery of his courtiers whose fortunes were tied to their master’s, all were calculated to induce an inflated yiew of himself and his destiny. From his success as a viceroy he may have concluded that no one could be better qualified to carry on die dynasty his father had founded. His ambition was certainly fed by the flattery and prognostications of the learned and pious men who graced his viceregal court; after all, the testament of the great Chih-i had placed in him the hope of a vast, peaceful Buddhist state; had he not seen himself in a mirror wearing the divine chaplet of a Bodhisattva sent him by his master?18 Moreover, his actual prospects were grim; an able and popular imperial prince had a very limited life expectancy once an elder brother succeeded to the throne, and the alternative to liquidation-through-intrigue was civil war. It seems clear that he saw himself as a man endowed with unusual gifts, a man with proven military and administrative abilities, a man of culture who could knit together with understanding the north from which he came and the south which he had come to love; and above all as a man of imagination and vision—not a prudent bureaucratic drone like his father—who could expand and glorify the Sui imtil the impérial name echoed throughout the known world. It is a measure of his ambi­ tions that he likened himself to the great and ruthless Han Wu-ti (ruled 140-87 b.c . ), who brought his dynasty to the zenith of power in eastern Asia. Such a self-image explains many of the steps and stratagems in Yang Kuang’s pursuit of power. His artistic sensibility and imagination are clues to both the strengths and the weaknesses of his imperial poli-

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des. Lasswell, in discussing homo politicust says, "Indeed, self-decep­ tion is perhaps the rule, for the political personality w ith a strong artistic component possesses a florid imagination which dramatizes his personal history and subordinates all reality to ambitious plans.”19 Yang Kuang’s self-image was the product of this sort of imagination, of flattery, and of cumulative successes. It dissolved disastrously under the im pact of adversity. To return to our narrative, the year 600 was a critical one in die life of Yang Kuang’s father, the reigning emperor. In July he completed a full sexagenary cycle of life—to his own surprise and that of most of his subjects.20 But he did survive, and a week after his birthday, his third son Chün was poisoned—an event which caused the father little remorse and possible relief at the disappearance of a potential rival. Late in the year Yang Kuang’s long intrigues against Yung, the crown prince, finally bore fruit; Yung was degraded, and he and his family were reduced to the rank of commoners. On December 13 Yang Kuang was proclaimed crown prince, and w ith the new year, a new era was proclaimed—Jen-shou, “Benevolent Longevity,” symbolizing the end of the crisis and the beginning of long years of benevolent rule by the aging emperor. The new crown prince moved to the capital w ith his southern wife and entourage. There he built a mansion near the beautiful lake in the southeast com er of the city. Nearby he built the Jih-yen tem ple and invited there many of the leading southern clerics who had graced the viceregally supported tem ple in Yang-chou.21 In his new tem ple he sponsored sutra readings, Buddhist scholarship, and religious ob­ servances. In these years the emperor and empress became ever more deeply involved in Buddhist activities, and it was necessary for the crown prince to make seemly displays of piety. The vow he made about this time to give a maigre feast for one thousand monks at M ount T’ienta i contains passages which are blatant flattery of his parents: Your disciple has happily been able to rely on a most fortunate destiny . . . I was bom in a Buddhist family. The Emperor and Empress instructed me in the womb with kindness and benevolence. They are possessed of the love which Candrâkadïpa showed to his eight royal sons, of the stimulating power for goodness which Mahäbhijnä Jnänäbhibhu manifested to his sixteen érâmanera sons. . . .22 After Yang Kuang became crown prince, his father increasingly depended on him for the conduct of state affairs. The chronicles say th at whenever the old m an w ent to his summer palace to escape the heat, he Ordered the crown prince to take charge.23 In September of 602, the empress died; Yang Kuang had lost his most consistent partisan

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supporter, the emperor his lifelong confidante. The filial and dutiful crown prince ordered the monks of his Jih-yen temple to hold special services in her memory.24 A late source says that the prince publicly showed unbearable grief at his mother’s death but privately ate, drank, and joked as usual.25 Here is the hypocritical, unfilial ingrate painted by the moralistic historians of later times (see below), a picture to be viewed with skepticism. On January 27, 603, the emperor degraded his fourth son on evi­ dence of black magic manufactured by Yang Kuang’s henchmen. An­ other potential rival was out of the way, and Yang Kuang was drawing nearer to the imperial position. In the summer of 604 the emperor fell ill, and Yang Kuang’s moment was at hand. The “Annals” of the Sui-shu baldly state that the emperor died and the prince succeeded to the imperial position in the Jen-shou palace,25 but several biographies hint at dark intrigues.27 The emperor’s favorite, the lady Hsiian-hua of the defunct Ch’en ruling house, reported to the dying emperor that the crown prince had improperly accosted her. The old man rallied, it is said, and sent an order summoning the deposed crown prince Yung, presumably with the idea of reinstating him; but Yang Kuang end his henchman Yang Su intercepted the message. At that point another of Yang Kuang’s men, Chang Heng, entered the sickroom and ordered the lady Hsiian-hua and the other attendants to leave the room. Shortly thereafter they heard that the emperor had died. The palace attendants were suspicious of foul play and feared for their lives. Yang Kuang continued his pursuit of the lady Hsiian-hua and used die collective fears of the palace attendants to force her to submit to him. That night he had his way with her. We can never know the truth; we can only judge the extent to which these alleged acts fit in with our other information on Yang Kuang’s behavior. Clearly this behavior suggests the belated resolution of an Oedipus complex. Do we find other symptoms of such a complex in other known behavior of Yang Kuang? Again, is the forcing of a daugh­ ter of the defunct “legitimate” dynasty of Ch’en to be interpreted, as Balazs has suggested, as supercompensation for the northern prince’s feeling of social and cultural inferiority?25 To take the second question first, I think not. I have suggested that Yang Kuang’s emotional identi­ fication with the south sprang in part from his disgust with the un­ couth and overbearing ways of his parents. If this is correct, there is something to be said for the oedipal interpretation. Moreover, it seems more than likely that Yang Kuang resented his father. He was his mother’s adored favorite. He clandestinely and later openly cultivated habits of the sort his father despised: sensuous indulgence, high living.

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aesthetic pleasures. And in many of his policies he reversed his father's altogether: for example, his tolerance of Confucianism, his political favoring of southerners over northerners, his development of imagi­ native and often extravagant plans for the glorification of the dynasty at home and abroad. O ur evidence is incomplete, b u t w hat we do know suggests the possibility of an oedipal drive. Yang Kuang ascended the throne as Yang-ti of the Sui on August 21, 604. In discussing the events of his reign, we shall be concerned only with those which shed light on the development and disintegration of Yang-ti's personality. Im m ediately on his accession he took steps to rehabilitate Confucian education and to set up an examination sys­ tem.29 In doing this he reversed his father's harsh anti-Confucian meas­ ures of the year 601, b u t spiting his father was far from being his main motive. He had, rather, two political purposes, both designed to broaden and strengthen the basis of im perial power. One was to curb the power of the great entrenched northern—particularly northwest­ ern-fam ilies on whom his father had almost exclusively depended. The other was a corollary: to enfranchise the southern gentry and the gentry of the northeast, whose scholarly traditions would favor them in an examination system.80 The total effect would be to redress the balance of power between northerners and southerners—also between those of non-Chinese and those of Chinese stock—and assure the emperor of a w ider and more diversified pool of com petent officials. There is pre­ liminary evidence th at there was a trend tow ard this diversification during Yang-ti's reign.81 W ith Yang-ti Buddhism continued to con­ tribute to both the m iranda and the credenda of state and dynasty, b ut Confucianism was revived as the body of knowledge whose acquisition gave access to power. Another measure early in the new reign was the building of an eastern capital at Loyang. The city had been a H an capital, later be­ came one of the capitals of the W estern Chin, and was to be the eastern capital of the T ang; it was culturally im portant and a significant center of trade; and it had been, as recently as the period 494-577, the politi­ cal and m ilitary hub of the rich and populous east China area. More­ over, it was distant from the estates of the northwestern gentry whose power Yang-ti was seeking to curb, and more accessible than Ch'ang-an to the east China gentry and the southerners whom Yang-ti favored. There were, therefore, sound reasons for Yang-ti's desire to build here a new and magnificent capital which would be a symbol and a center of Sui power.82 H e proceeded to recruit corvée labor—even as his father had doneTor the construction of his new capital at Ch'ang-an, and the building of the city, the palaces, and the im perial parks was completed

ARTHUR F. WRIGHT 168 at high speed. The Sui-shu tells us that four or five laborers out of ten died under the intense pressure of the work,*8 a result of the emperor's impatience to occupy his new and impressive capital. The greatest of the new emperor s building projects was the im­ provement and extension of the canal system which his father had be­ gun to link together the new empire. The southward extension from the new eastern capital at Loyang to a point near the head of Hang­ chow bay was the most ambitious part of the project, though much of the route utilized natural watercourses. Again masses of corvée labor were used, and by 605 the emperor was able to make a progress by barge to Chiang-tu (Yang-chou), his “Yangtse capital,” where he had long served as viceroy. The spectacular luxury of the imperial flotilla is roundly denounced by the moralists and lovingly embroidered by the storytellers, but this and subsequent progresses were, as Balazs has pointed out, sound political acts. They were demonstrations of Sui power and wealth along a waterway which served to link together the long disunited areas of north and south;84 they were tangible evidence of the ruler s concern for the recently incorporated southern areas whose culture and people he found so appealing. And, as the T ang use of these canals was to show, they were vital links between the economically expanding south and the seats of political power in the north. In build­ ing them Yang-ti displayed what appears to us to be remarkable political and economic vision. But Confucian historians of later years—inter­ ested only in a stable, balanced agrarian economy—saw all Yang-ti s building projects as acts of vainglorious profligacy, a reckless and point­ less ravaging of the full treasury and the bulging granaries left by his father. Here, as in so many other cases in Chinese history, policies necessary to the vigorous and expansive exercise of imperial power are condemned by gentry officialdom as violations of their principles and their interests. In 607 Yang-ti turned to another of the classic concerns of vigorous Chinese rulers: the western and northern frontiers. He began to open up contact with the peoples of Central Asia, and followed up his first overtures by sending out military expeditions, establishing military colonies, and asserting political power among the leaders of steppe tribes. Thus was developed a costly “full forward” policy along the steppe frontiers, designed to free the empire of the barbarian incursions which had plagued the preceding reign. Another frontier measure was the reconstruction of the Great Wall, a common move in the early years of a new dynasty. The chroniclers of Yang-ti’s reign dolefully report that of the million laborers conscripted for th is work, more th an h a lf died.88 Despite the appalling human costs of all these programs of

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building and expansion, each one was well calculated to assert and solidify the power of the dynasty. The attem pt to bring the kingdom of Koguryö (northern Man­ churia and northern Korea) to full submission was, of course, the be­ ginning of Yang-ti’s downfall. Yet it was not an altogether foolish project: a dynasty bent on expansion clearly could not tolerate a threat­ ened subversive alliance between the king of Koguryö and the Eastern Turks—an alliance which would have menaced all the northern marches and routes of trade. Yang-ti planned his expedition against Koguryö with great care and led his armies to initial victories in the valley of the Liao River. It was no doubt in the hopeful summer months of 612 that Yang-ti composed this poem celebrating the campaign: East of die Liao, north of die Sea, we will kill the monstrous beast. And the wind-driven clouds are clearing for ten thousand li. Now we should smelt down our weapons, disperse our horses and cattle, And return in triumph to feast in the ancient capital. Those in front will sing, those behind will dance, rousing our martial ardor. And with libations in die ancestral hall we shall doff our warrior*s garb. Would anyone judge that we have vainly marched ten thousand li away Or returned empty-handed to the five plains?86 Yet the autum n came w ithout success, and die unhappy ruler returned to his capital, not for a trium ph, b u t to deal w ith serious economic and political difficulties. Perhaps at this point he should have given up the effort to chastise Koguryö and concentrated wholly on relieving the mounting distress within the empire, b u t such a move would have been out of character for this ambitious, imaginative, and supremely ego­ tistical monarch. H e now needed success to rehabilitate his reputation and his self-esteem. Twice more he imposed special tax levies, raised conscripts, commandeered supplies, and m arched to the northeast In the course of the third campaign, which ended in the autum n of 614, rebellions broke out all over the empire, and Yang-ti*s regim e was in dire straits.87 Under the im pact of these disasters and of a narrow escape from cap­ ture by the Eastern Turks in the autum n of 615 the emperor's person­ ality disintegrated. His judgm ent and decisiveness deserted him. H e expressed his frustration in murderous rages against his advisers, in orgies of self-pity, in sensuous indulgence, and finally in a last burst of extravagant display: the ordering of a new im perial flotilla in 616. H e turned his back on problems he now found too great to solve, left Ch*ang-an to r Loyang, and shortly thereafter sailed in splendor down the canal to his beloved Yang-chou.

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Through the year 617 the emperor watched the country sink into civil war, as rival claimants to die succession arose throughout the land. He was haunted by dreams, wracked by fears of impending doom, and filled with the bittemess of defeat There is no evidence that his Bud­ dhist faith helped reconcile him to the loss of his worldly kingdom or caused him to question his lifelong pursuit of power and glory. Even the soft beauty of spring in his lovely Yangtse capital no longer had its old power to please and comfort him. Everything spoke with the voice of doom. In the spring of 618, he wrote this poem: I seek to return but cannot get away. When, in sober fact, I face such a spring as this. The songs of the birds spur on our toasting, But the plum blossoms make mock of our company.*8 In this same tragic spring the poet-emperor was murdered and his empire passed to the rising house of Tang. Yet, as we shall see in the following sections, the death of this man was but the beginning of the two other lives he was to have: as a political stereotype and as a figure in popular mythology. SUI YANG-TI AS A POLITICAL STEREOTYPE

The transmutation of the historical personality of Yang-ti into a political stereotype may be considered under several aspects. First, it is the work of historians, moralists, political thinkers, and officials motivated by various conscious and unconscious drives. They viewed the past as a rich repository of experience, as a collection of situations whose causes, configurations, and effects would serve the living as a guide to action; they viewed the past also as a continuum within which certain moral principles operated, permanent and universal principles laid down by the sages. The past could only teach its lessons if the moral dynamics of history were pointed out, abstracted from the manifold of events, hammered home by argument and illustration. One of the most persuasive ways to present such lessons was to exemplify in certain historical figures the virtues or vices which governed the course of human events. In doing this the tendency was to paint in black and white, to strip the subject of all characteristics that blurred the positive or negative image, to portray events as a simple continuum in which the subject’s basic personal qualities were decisive. Other factors also helped shape the image, notably literary and historiographical conventions and e x istin g b is tn rieal stereotypes. By Yang-ti’s time, Chinese history numbered half a dozen or more rulers—

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from the remote last ruler of die Hsia to die last em peror of the Ch en— dead but a decade or so—whose fatefully evil behavior had already been abstracted from the record and related to simplified versions of the path to political disaster. These figures were described in m etaphor and allusions which linked die earlier and later figures together in a single literary nexus. W hen the historians of the early T an g set to work on Yang-ti, the fall of the C hen and the character of its last ruler had been shaped to the established pattern in the memory of living men. Finally, as we have seen, there were specific political pressures upon the early T ang historians that affected the ultim ate stereotyping of Yang-ti. At the inception of most new dynasties there is an urgent need to find sanctions, to form ulate an ideology in support of the regime. And one of the time-honored ways of sanctioning a new dynasty is to write a history of the defunct regime, showing it to be corrupt, in­ effectual, and tyrannical, a rule whose disruptions of the interrelated natural and hum an orders has produced signs of Heaven’s displeasure, of Heaven’s wish to see the political m andate pass to another house. Early T ang historians shared with their im perial masters a deep interest in explaining the fall of the Sui in such a way as to justify its displacement by the T ang. Discussions between the Emperor T aitsung and W ei Cheng, the head of the commission for the compilation of the Sui history, reveal this common interest and suggest the political atmosphere in which the historian worked. In a memorial of 636 W ei Cheng presented a rousing indictm ent of the iniquities of Yang-ti and sounded many of the notes th at we shall find reiterated in the histories; he followed the indictm ent with a strikingly contrasted picture of the wise beneficence of the new dynasty.89 On another occasion Wei Cheng gave a still more impassioned denunciation of Yang-ti, and die emperor rem inded his official th at some of the blame for die Suis iniquities devolved upon its ministers who failed in their duty to remonstrate.40 This interchange again suggests the tension that existed in the historian’s task: paint the last ruler in darkest hues, for a last ruler must have been immoral, and his immorality sanctions the new dynasty; but do not go so far as to distort history and destroy its didactic value. In sum, the stereotyping process was constrained by a historical tradition which approved a stress on the moral dynamic in human affairs b u t disapproved the fabrication and distortion of evidence. It was molded by a millenial political myth which stressed the quintessential virtue or vice of a ruler as a prim e historical force. It was stimulated by the immediate demands of a regime which required both historical and moral-justification. Perhaps before turning to an analysis of the growth of the Yang-ti

ARTHUR F. WRIGHT 172 stereotype, we should ask what sort of a class bias influenced those who developed it. Clearly the power and m aterial interests of the gentry-literati had been favored by many of Yang-ti’s policies: the reinstitution of the examination system, the revival of the Confudan curriculum,41the building of a new capital that was geographically more accessible to the sons of educated families. Thus he was negatively judged and ultimately stereotyped by those whose class interests he had favored. In seeking to explain this apparent anomaly, we would refer to a theme that has become increasingly clear in recent studies: the endemic tension between monarchy and bureaucracy. The gentryliterati needed the monarchy, and the monarchy was dependent on skills which the gentry-literati alone possessed. Yet in ethos the two were perenially at odds. The prudential economic thought of die gentry clashed with the more expansive ideas of a vigorous monarch; the gentry were bitterly critical of the pomp and display by which the monarchy asserted the power and greatness of the dynasty; the court always seemed to gentry families flamboyant and improvident, always tainted with immorality, always at odds with the gentry’s ideal of a frugal, wise, judicious and self-denying exercise of kingly power. These and related attitudes constitute the class bias of the interpretations we shall consider. Traditional Characterology of a Bad Ruler It may help us to understand the force of traditional models in the stereotyping of Yang-ti if we consider some earlier representatives of the type. One of the earliest and most important of these was Chou Hsin, the last ruler of the Shang, which was traditionally brought down by the virtuous house of Chou in the twelfth century b .c .4S In most respects the stereotype finds its complete expression in this early exem­ plar. The accompanying paradigm of the behavioral attributes of Chou Hsin can serve as a basis for the analysis of later figures in the same sequence, including Yang-ti. The vices presented in this outline have, of course, ramifying rela­ tionships to other Chinese values and attitudes. These vices are also interrelated, sometimes in an obvious fashion, sometimes more subtly. For example, the rulers desire for conspicuous consumption and ex­ travagant construction works is often stimulated by his favorite and opposed by an “upright minister” who gives a lecture on the frugality and prudence of ancient sage kings, the suffering of the people and its probable consequences, etc. The upright minister is promptly and cruelly executed for his pains, and a vicious sycophant replaces him. In such a sequence the characteristics we have numbered A,1,2,3, B,2,3, and C,5 are all closely linked in something like a causal nexus whose

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op the

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B a d -L a s t R u l e r

Shu-ching and Shih-chi references for the stereotype of Chou Hsin* Shu-ching Shih-chi A. Tyranny (die abuse of supreme political power) 1. Neglect or abuse of upright officials 2. Favoritism toward sycophants and corrupt officials 3. Callousness toward the suffering of the masses (a) Unreasonable and unseasonable exactions of taxes and labor fb) Harsh laws and cruel punishments (c) The flouting of good laws B. Self-indulgence (unrestrained use of supreme power ana wealth for self-gratification) 1. Drunkenness 2. Passion for rare and expensive goods: cloth­ ing, food, etc. 3. Elaborate and extravagant construction: pal­ aces, pleasure pavilions, gardens, carriages, boats, etc. 4. Pleasure before work, sloth C. Licentiousness (sex-linked behavior of disap­ proved kinds) 1. Lust, sexual overindulgence 2. Orgies, "unnatural” sex acts 3. Sadism 4. Promotion of lascivious music 5. Blind infatuation with a favorite D. Lack of personal virtue (i.e., flouting of estab­ lished norms of interpersonal relations and of re­ turns with supernatural powers) 1. Unfilial behavior 2. Unbrotherly behavior 3. Improper conduct toward wife 4. Improper treatment of paternal and maternal relatives 5. Lack of ceremonial respect to Heaven, the spirits, and ancestors 6. Addiction to sorcery and “heretical” religious practices

284,285 291,295 303 303,468 513 468

201-2

284 295

201

471

199 200

203 200-201

284 468,513

199

284

199 200

285 295

200 199

294 294 294 303 286,295 303

204-5

* The page numbers in the right-hand columns are first to James Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. II, and second to Edouard Chavannes. Les Mémoires his­ toriques dé Se-ma Ts’ien, Vol. I. A few subheadings have been added for vices that are not specified but implied.

starting point is a sort of undifferentiated “badness” of character in die ruler. To take another example» licentiousness (C ) leads to absorp­ tion in pleasure and neglect of duty (B,4) and also to the trespasses numbered D ,l-4; sometimes the upright remonstrator protests the licen­ tious conduct of his master and is killed (A ,l ). The weight given to licentiousness as a dynamic in the process of personal and dynastic ruin might seem to the historian of the West—or of the Middle East—to be somewhat excessive. Fully to explain this weighting would take us far afield» but the traditional Chinese view of sex helps us to understand i t Sexual intercourse is approved for procrea­ tion only. The sexually demanding woman is believed to sap the vital­ ity of the male. Male energy, whether physical or intellectual, is dis­ sipated by sexual indulgence; the male becomes depleted and unfit to play his role in life.43 Thus, in the case of a ruler, sexual overindulgence undermines his moral stamina, his judgment in state affairs, his ability to perform all the complex ritual and practical duties of his exalted office. His position entitles him to take his pleasure with the most attractive women of the empire, but in the stereotype, he is usually the victim of a femme fatale—an unprincipled and demanding favorite who lures and seduces him to the utter depletion of his energies. She is in many ways the analogue of the “fox women” of the popular stories who lure men to their ruin. It is the duty of the righteous succeeding regime to execute her, and this is usually a part of the story. It will be noted in our outline that nearly all the evil characteristics of Chou Hsin which appear in the Shu-ching are found in Ssu-ma C hien s account of the fall of the Shang. There is a sharp contrast, however, in the tone of the two characterizations. The Shu-ching documents, what­ ever their varying dates may be, reflect in their colorful rhetoric the urgent need of the Chou to justify itself; Ssu-ma C hien is far enough from the events to adopt the sober circumstantial moralizing tone which dominates the standard histories which were to follow. The historians of the Han were not agreed on how to interpret the fall of the unifying empire of Chin, to whose drastic measures of cen­ tralization and reorganization the Han owed so much. They were some­ what awed by C hin Shih Huang-ti’s accomplishments, though they found his cruelty, ruthlessness, and anti-traditionalism abhorrent.44 Ssu-ma Chien and Chia I placed much of the blame for bringing the empire to ruin on literally the last ruler. Prince Tzu-ying, who held the shadow of power against a host of enemies for a mere three months. This view was attacked by Pan Ku, at the invitation of the Emperor Hsiaoming ( reigned a .d . 5S-75 ). Pan Ku accepts what he says is a widespread tradition that C hin Shih Huang-ti was the in s H g a tn r of all the evils, but

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that Erh-shih Huang-ti carried them to extremes. For all dus lack of agreement, the picture of the second—and last effective ruler—of the Ch’in which emerges from the Shih-chi is presented within the conven­ tions of the traditional characterology of the bad-last ruler. It is his misdeeds that reduce the Ch’in empire to ruin. Erh-shih Huang-ti is explicitly credited with all the defects under heading A in our outline, and with all the ones under B except drunkenness and sloth. Derelictions under C are implied b u t not specified, and the absence of the favorite, the femme fataley is notable. Category D is represented by unbrotherly behavior and by failure to respect the ancestral altars.*6 Perhaps the most striking thing about this characterization is that die regimes of two totalitarian monarchs—new in Chinese history—added no new categories to the characterology in the Shu-ching. This suggests that the relative effectiveness of institutional means for the realization of evil designs is of litde weight in the allocation of blame. W e now pass over some seven hundred years and consider a ruler who was transm uted into a bad-last stereotype by the Sui dynasty itself: the last emperor of die C hen, whose dynasty was extinguished by the Sui in its conquest of the south in 589. In the spring of 588, the Sui emperor issued an edict specifying twenty crimes committed by die Ch en ruler. Then, as part of his “psychwar” preparation for the attack on the south, he ordered 300,000 copies made and broadcast through­ out the area south of the Yangtse.46 Three aspects of this move are of interest to us here. First, despite the extensive use which the early Sui made of Buddhism to provide sanctions for their regime, the content of this communication is wholly within the Confucian tradition; this sug­ gests th at this tradition continued to provide the ideology of political transition even in a dominantly Buddhist age. Second, it is im portant to note that the northerners, despite their mixed culture and die thin­ ness of their Confucian learning, recognized the usefulness of this seg­ m ent of the Confucian tradition for accomplishing their ends. Third, the mass propaganda use of the edict indicates that the Sui leadership believed that the traditional arguments would be accepted by large elements of the southern population—not proof, perhaps, but surely presumptive evidence that the tradition was widely accepted. Finally, we note with interest that the characterology of bad-last rulers was not wholly the work of historians working after die fact but played a role in actual political-ideological struggle. The Sui denunciation gives die Ch’en ruler nearly all the character­ istics specified in our outline. H e executes the worthy and those who speak truthfully (A ,l). The worthies fly into hiding while the mean get their way (A ,l,2). Soldiers are forced to m anual labor in hunger

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and cold; his levies of all kinds are unceasing and even fall on women and children (A,3a). He extinguishes blameless families; he uses the punishment of slicing and cruelly exterminates the good and the tal­ ented (A,3b). His flouting of all good laws and established mores (A,3c) is clearly implied throughout. There is drunkenness in the women s apartments, and drinking which turns die day into night, i.e., the days are spent sleeping off the excesses of the night (B ,l). There is limitless indulgence in jeweled clothing and costly foods ( B,2 ). He ruthlessly uses forced levies to build his palaces, and work never stops (B,3). He pursues his pleasures night and day; from dawn to dusk he attends to no business of state (B,4). His concubines are numbered in the tens of thousands (C ,l). He cuts out men's livers and drains off their blood (C,3). His drinking bouts are accompanied by lascivious music (C,4). His blind infatuation with a single favorite does not figure in this document, but the femme fatale is identified in the course of the Sui conquest, and despite Yang Kuang’s wish to have her for his harem, the stem Kao Chiung has her executed, citing the precedent that King Wu of the Chou executed the favorite of the last Shang king.47 We find no specific details on the C hen emperor's lack of familial vir­ tues, but he outrages heaven with his evil deeds and worships demons to seek their help (D,5,6), and the graves of the dead are violated (D ,5). In heaven and earth, in the world of beasts and of men, there are monstrous occurrences which testify to his neglect of the proper observances; he is wildly contumacious toward the five elements and insolently ignores the three principles of heaven, earth, and man.48 The attribution to the last ruler of the Ch'en of most of the elements of tiie traditional characterology of the "bad last” ruler demonstrates its continuing vitality in the Sui period. Yet it is interesting to note that tiie Sui were not so carried away by their rhetoric as to execute this “monster,” who was comfortably pensioned off. Nor did this portrait long survive the ideological demands that had given rise to it. By the time the Ch'en history was in final form, the T’ang had succeeded the Sui, and its historians were not interested in blackening the character of a ruler who had been overwhelmed by tiie Sui conquest.48 Yang-ti as Stereotype These examples may have suggested the conventions within which the historical Yang-ti was transmuted into a stereotype. It remains for us to consider how this was done. The first and authoritative transmu­ tation was accomplished by the authors of the Stii-shu writing, as we have seen, under the pressure of the new T*ang ruling house. Let us first see how the complexity of Yang-ti's character and the momentous

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events of his reign were simplified and moralized in the three summa­ tions of these events in the Sui-shu (here referred to as texts I, II, and III).50 The letter and number combinations below once again refer to our outline of the stereotype. Category A is amply filled out by the authors of the Sui-shu. A ,l: “He dismissed remonstrating officials in order to conceal his faults”; “H e slaughtered the loyal and the good” (I). “H e became estranged from his brave officers in the field and was suspicious of the loyal and the good at court” (II). Category A,2 is mentioned or implied in many passages: “Cunning officials exploited the people so that they could find no way to live” (I ) . A,3,a: “The army standards stretched out for ten thousand li; the tax levies became ever more numerous”; “The dis­ gruntled soldiery was urged on again and again, and construction work never ceased” (I) . A,3,b and A,3,c: “Those who received gifts from him were not aware of their merit; those who were killed by him did not know w hat their crime was” (I) . “Then he took harsh measures to harass the people; he made punishments more severe there­ w ith to threaten the people; he used troops and brute force to control them ” (I). The general them e of self-indulgence (B ) is presented as a corol­ lary of an immense vanity, an insatiable lust for self-glorification. De­ scribing the last doomed court at Yang-chou, the historians say, “No one gave a thought to the uprisings; they flapped their silly wings and played out their long night revelries” (I) . Elsewhere in the Sui-shu we are given a picture of Yang-ti at the end as a maudlin drunk,51 b ut in the appraisals we are considering, drunkenness (B ,l) is relatively unstressed. The passion for rare and expensive goods (B,2) is only hinted at. Naturally, Yang-ti’s elaborate construction work, B,3, is fully stressed. “Construction work was unceasing” (I) . “Thus he ordered canals dug and roads built; the former were shaded by willow trees and the latter decorated with gilded arms . . . Mountains were cut open and valleys filled up. Boats sailed on the canals to the sea. The people s resources were exhausted, and there was no lim it to the corvée and frontier m ilitary service” (II). The theme of “pleasure before work,” Category B,4, is brought in only in connection with the last years of the dynasty: the accusation is not th at Yang-ti was slothful but that his vanity produced a frenetic energy which drove him and his regime to undertakings which were beyond their resources. Category C, “Licentiousness,” is rather understressed. “H e wan­ tonly indulged in licentiousness,” and did so clandestinely so as to keep his m others favor (I ) . But we find no reference to orgies, unnatural sex acts, sadism, or lascivious music (C ,2,3,4), and no femme fatale.

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Category D, the flouting of established norms of relations with men and gods, is far less elaborated for Yang-ti than for earlier stereo­ types. “He slaughtered his blood relatives” (I) serves to suggest de­ fects D,l,2,4, but given the strong suspicion of patricide and conniv­ ance in fratricide in the historical accounts themselves, this range of vices is rather strikingly understressed. On the other hand, text III achieves the ultimate simplification of the Sui collapse by attributing it to Yang-ti s loss of virtue: “One man lost virtue, and the world col­ lapsed into ruin.” It is also said that “his teaching violated the four cardinal virtues [propriety, righteousness, integrity, morality],” but there is no mention whatever of D,5 or D,6. (The record shows that he maintained in fact a full ceremonial calendar. ) Again he is not ac­ cused of addiction to sorcery or “heretical” religious practices (D ,6). Thus the Tang historians lay particular stress on Yang-ti s tyranny and self-indulgence as factors in the downfall of the Sui and only touch on the other two principal categories of our outline. In fact, their appraisal, in deviating significantly from the traditional stereotype, is occasionally close to the conclusions which a modem rationalistic his­ torian might reach; certainly this appraisal is far more “rational” than the historical estimates of earlier bad-last rulers. Nonetheless, the writers of the Sui-shu explicitly fit Yang-ti into the tradition of bad-last mlers. Note in the following passage from text II the favorable estimates of the two fathers which serve to emphasize the vice and folly of the two sons: As to the Sui dynasty’s achievements and shortcomings, its preservation and destruction, these are generally analogous to those of the Ch’in. Shih-huang [of the Ch’in] unified the country; so did Kao-tsu [Sui Wen-ti]. Erh-shih [of the Ch’in] tyrannically used force and harsh punishments. Yang-ti wan­ tonly indulged in malevolent cruelty. In both cases their ruin began with the uprisings of rebels, and they lost their lives at the hands of commoners. From beginning to end, they are as alike as the two halves of a tally. This is an excellent example of the way all the variations and differ­ ences, all the special features of a given regime, can be disregarded in the interests of making a didactic moral point Clearly, throughout all these estimates, we see a tension—a conflict—between the urge toward moralistic simplification within the traditional characterology and the demands of specific historical data. The conflict is not resolved in these estimates, and they are thus made up of two d istin g u ish a b le strata— one produced by the first urge and the other molded by historical knowl­ edge. In another respect the authors of the Sui-shu come very close to one important point made in our analysis of the historical personality of

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Yang-ti; they identify die crisis point in his life and his regime and stress the rapid disintegration of both after that point. At one point text II suggests that it was only after his narrow escape from capture by the Turks in 615 that his spirit broke. Elsewhere the same text sees his abandonment of his two northern capitals as the crisis point. "Yang-ti s spirit was stripped and his courage gone.” And then they suggest that his flight southward was following the pattern of the Chin, which abandoned the north and fled to the Yangtse valley in 317. The general tendency throughout is to begin the full development of the bad-last ruler characterology from the northeastern campaigns or from one of the other two points in time mentioned above. In some cases, to be sure, the “good” policies of the earlier part of his reign are for­ gotten and the “badness” is projected back over the whole period— notably in die m atter of legal enactments, which were unusually mild in the early years and became increasingly draconian as the crisis deep­ ened.92 Nonetheless, the identification of a turning point in Yang-ti’s career brings the T ang estimate close to w hat a sifting of the evidence reveals. At still another point the estimates agree with w hat a critical sift­ ing of the evidence has shown: in their emphasis on Yang-ti’s enormous vanity, w hat we m ight call his delusively inflated self-image. Text II puts it this way: He considered that owing to his mighty deeds all creation would instandy obey him, that he was the great prince whose merit was higher than that of the ancient exemplars. He needed no “outside” relatives to win the succes­ sion, nor help from subordinates to gain power. In stature he compared favorably with Chou and Han rulers. Ten thousand generations hence there would be none to equal him. From high antiquity onward there had been only one such prince.9* In later historical writings Yang-ti appears again and again. My impression is th at the stereotype survives almost as a cliché and that the variations suggested in the Sui-shu estimates tend to drop away. In Chao I s discussion of the Prince of Hai-ling (ruler of the Chin, 1149-61) Yang-ti is used as a kind of crude standard of “badness.” Chao I remarks that although Yang-ti killed his father and his brothers ( assertions not to be found in die Sui-shu) , the Prince of Hai-ling killed several hundred members of his own house. Yang-ti was not this badl Again, the massive conscriptions of the Prince of Hai-ling for his cam­ paign against die Sung equaled the exactions of Yang-ti for his expe­ ditions against Koguryö; here they are equally “bad.” Finally, both were m urdered by their own subordinates. Chao I adds that Shih H u of die L ater Chao (ruled 334-49) was the most immoral (wu-tao)

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ruler prior to Yang-ti and the Prince of Hai-ling.*4 Chao I is writing “notes” and not organized essays, but it is odd that he should not have mentioned the long line of depraved rulers prior to the fourth cen­ tury a .d ., some of whom we have considered. For him the criterion of “badness” is Yang-ti, and it is as this bald stereotype that Yang-ti ap­ pears in the literati’s essays and memorials of the 1,300 years from his fall to the end of the Chinese empire. SUI YANG-TI AS A STOCK VILLAIN

If the moralized political image just described was the particular property of the elite, Yang-ti as a stock villain had a broader clientele: readers of short stories and tales of the remarkable, town and village storytellers, rural dramatic troupes, and, eventually, the novel-reading audiences of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Our knowledge of the historical sociology of Chinese fiction is so imperfect that we can­ not say with certainty when, or in what form, the popular image began to take shape. But since palace gossip, retailed and embroidered as it spread through the empire, lies behind the fictionalized accounts of more recent emperors, we may reasonably suppose that the earliest tales of Yang-ti’s character and activities were based on just such gos­ sip, possibly supplemented by eyewitness accounts from those who had returned from the wars or from the capitals. The basic elements of a good story were all there: a high-born and handsome leading man who climbed the heights of power and descended dramatically to a tragic end; family intrigue which linked the lowliest Chinese family to the highest; the splendor of great deeds which linked the listener through wish-fulfillment fantasy with the protagonist; scenes of luxury and sen­ suality. And behind this high drama were the presiding fates, who lent a touch of solemnity and pointed the moral lesson without which many of the audience might have felt unsatisfied. The fates in this case were heaven—that amorphous deity which yet sent disaster to the tyrannical and the unrighteous—and the prevailing moral norms of Chinese so­ ciety: not deities, not divine laws, yet somehow working for those who adhered to them and against those who did not. The storytellers’ tales, for a number of reasons, went unrecorded for centuries.55 For the early years, we have only the cKuan-cKi tales, written down in a rather loose-jointed classical style for the entertain­ ment of the literate. No canons of historiography restrained the authors; their purpose was solely to entertain. The ch’uan-ch’i stories dealing with Yang-ti’s reign seem to me to be relevant materials for the early popular image in two respects. First, it appears to be from these stories that later storytellers and novelists drew much of their material for

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vernacular fiction dealing with Yang-ti; it is in these stories that the stereotyped "bad ruler” mentioned in much of later fiction begins to take shape. It seems likely, therefore, that there was a considerable overlap in content between the cKuan-cKi stories and the lost tales of the oral tradition, since both presumably derived from recent memories of great events. The Sui lived on in the palaces, the canals, the cities which dotted the landscape; it lived on in collective memories in which the differences between elite and folk levels may well have been slight. The editors of the imperially commissioned “Catalogue of the Four Treasuries Collection” comment disparagingly on three of the collec­ tions of anecdotes we shall consider. They point out anachronisms and errors, and they say disdainfully, “They are close to vulgar cKuan-cKi tales and, it goes without saying, are utterly unreliable.”86 Since it is the “vulgar” image of Yang-ti th at we seek in these stories, this com­ ment is reassuring. Reverting once again to the outline on p. 62, we shall summarize the content of four works by T ang and Sung writers: Mi-lou Chi (M LC ), Hai-shan Chi (H SC ), Kai-ho Chi (K H C ), and Ta-yeh Shih-i Chi (TY C).67 Many of the stories in these collections describe how good and evil omens were borne out by events. In some stories Yang-ti is a rather incidental figure; in a good many others, the prognostications have to do with his own fall, and he emerges as superstitious, volatile, and subject to black moods. Another large category of anecdotes is concerned with the misdeeds of Yang-ti’s officials, particularly Yang Su (H SC) and Ma Shu-mou, who was in charge of the building of the Pien section of the Grand Canal (K H C ). These men are represented as corrupt, rapacious, and fiendishly cruel—even worse, it would seem, than their im perial master. Our Category A, “Tyranny,” is filled, and with florid detail. Offi­ cials who protested the fiendish exactions of Ma Shu-mou were flogged (K H C ). Ho-jo Pi, advising against the plan to rebuild the G reat W all, cites the ills that befell the C hm regime in their work on i t The em­ peror becomes angry w ith the remonstrator; Ho-jo is put under house arrest and commits suicide (K H C ). Category A,3, “Callousness toward the suffering of the masses,” is still more fully developed: perhaps onefourth of the stories describe the people s ills under Yang-ti s tyranny. The lament of a veteran of the Koguryö campaign disturbs the emper­ or’s repose aboard his barge; his song tells of near-starvation in the northern campaigns; now the man is forced to pull the imperial barge. Everyone in the country is hungry; he has not a grain of his daily ration; the canal towpath stretches out 3,000 li ahead; surely he will die alone

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far from home (HSC). The emperor exacts a flotilla of five hundred large canal boats from people in the Huai and Yangtse valleys; families assigned a quota of one boat are bankrupted, family members are pil­ loried and flogged and finally sell their children to meet the demands (KHC). Yang-ti is enraged at the discovery of shallow stretches in the Grand Canal; he orders that the people living opposite the shallows be tied up and buried alive, head first, in the banks of the canal. Fifty thousand are buried alive (KHC). All the headings of category B, “Self-indulgence,” are represented with stories, stories replete with vivid, sometimes titillating, detail. A reference to Yang-ti s visiting his harem when drunk (TYC) is the sole mention of drunkenness in these texts, although elsewhere we read of his physicians warning him against excessive drinking (M LC). But the emperor s passion for rare and expensive goods is recounted in detail. For example, the sun-shades over the bows of the imperial barges were woven in Central Asia of the eyelashes of a rare animal and the threads of young lotus root; the sails were embroidered, and the tow ropes were made of silk (TYC). To please the emperors fancy, his women daily received a huge quantity of costly eyebrow paint im­ ported from Persia (TYC). Yang-ti s extravagant building projects are given full treatment. The building of the canal is presented as a personal whim, to give him easy and luxurious transport to the place he found most pleasurable, Yangchou (KHC). The K’ai-ho Chi, as the name suggests, deals largely with the cost of this project in lives and treasure. (According to this text, Yang-ti had trees planted along the watercourse to keep the sun off the beautiful girls who were recruited to pull the barges.) The building of the Western Plaisance (Hsi-yüan) is described in detail: a million conscripted laborers were at work at one time fashioning its artificial lakes, its four artificial seas, its artificial mountains, and its sixteen courtyards, and stocking it with birds, animals, plants, and flowers (HSC). The Mi-lou Chi is rich in detail on extravagant con­ struction and on the lascivious conduct of Yang-ti. For the Mi-lou was the “Maze Pavilion,” so named because of its intricate labyrinth of secret rooms and secret passages, designed to ensure the emperor privacy for his carnal pleasures. It was built of precious materials on a mag­ nificent scale—“a thousand doors and ten thousand windows.” Several tens of thousands of laborers managed to complete it in a year, and the treasury was totally depleted. The licentiousness ( C ) of the emperor in this sumptuous setting is described in loving detail. He stocked the pavilion with several thou-

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sand girls of good family and sometimes stayed there a month at a time. One of his ministers designed a "virgin car” which apparently held the victims’ hands and feet while they were deflowered by the lustful Yang-ti. The walls of the palace were hung with pornographic pictures, b u t these were replaced w ith polished bronze screens which m irrored w hat w ent on in the imperial bed. Yang-ti resorted to aphro­ disiacs, and was able to take "several tens” of women each day. All these passages of the Mi-lou Chi conjure up scenes of vast luxury and sensuous indulgence. Singing and music are mentioned, b u t the use of "lascivious music”—perennial object of the Confucian moralist’s dis­ approval—is scarcely mentioned. The storyteller was not interested in the moral effects of music. In these four texts no femme fatale appears to hasten Yang-ti’s doom. H e has a succession of favorites, but his historical empress appears in many scenes as an object of his indulgence or sometimes as a jealous wife. It appears to be only in later stories that the empress takes on the attributes of the femme fatale—sapping Yang-ti’s vitality, spurring him to folly, leading him to final disaster.68 Turning to category D, “Lack of personal virtue,” we find that these texts are virtually silent. The one account of the death of W en-ti ( HSC ) does not accuse Yang Kuang of patricide. There is no mention of his role in the liquidation of his brothers, nor are there references—good or bad—to his religious and ceremonial observances. The storytellers are not really concerned w ith moral dynamics in tiie historical process. At the end of the Mi-lou Chi, T ang T’ai-tsung appears on the scene, comments that the Maze Pavilion has been built of the flesh and blood of the people, and orders it burnt down. This, says the text, bears out the prophetic lines in a popular song and a poem of Yang-ti’s which had been previously recounted. “Hence one knows that the rise and fall of dynasties is never accidental.” This is far different from the laboring of the moral dynamic in the historical ac­ counts; it really says no more than th at coming events cast their shadows before them, or that a person w ith a sharp eye for signs and portents can know w hat is to come. This shift of emphasis—the relative underplaying of the moral dy­ namic and the relative neglect of Yang-ti’s defects of “personal virtue”— is understandable enough: it is hard to make an entertaining story out of nnfilial or unbrotherly behavior, or out of the neglect of proper cere­ monial conduct. Moreover, the moral dynamic may have been far less persuasive with the lower classes, or the lower levels of the elite, than it was w ith officials, historians, and political thinkers. Common sense also explains the great emphasis on Yang-ti’s tyranny.

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The tyranny stories are what we would call “tear-jerkers”; they are designed to evoke a quick response from those who share the experi­ ence of living under an autocratic bureaucracy. The waste, the cor­ ruption, the oppressive officials, the fads and follies of the supreme autocrat—all these are part of the real-life experience of the people who read these stories, and this serves to make them both interesting and believable. The emphasis on self-indulgence and licentiousness is a different matter. The ordinary Chinese who heard the storytellers* versions of these stories, or who in later times became literate enough to read vernacular versions of them, led hard-working, impoverished, selfdenying lives; they were constrained by the state, by the straitjacket of convention, by the pressure of the family. W hat better escape than into the perfumed halls of Yang-ti’s sumptuous palaces to consort for an hour with beautiful and compliant damsels? This combination of verisimilitude and wish-fulfillment fantasy often occurs in Chinese fic­ tion. As a tyrant—whether operating directly or through his minions— Yang-ti was eminently believable. As a cultivated debauchee, he pro­ vided vicarious satisfaction for many suppressed desires. It should be clear by now that the stereotyped “bad last” ruler of the historians was not by any means reproduced in the early popular writings about Yang-ti. In the seventeenth century and after, die early fictional accounts were drawn upon, elaborated, and collected in books which reached a far broader literate audience than ever before. One of these books is the Sui Yang-ti Yen-shih (“A Colorful History of Sui Yang-ti”).59 It is written in a style close to the vernacular, and its colorful dialogues are far more intelligible to a popular audience than the semi-classical speeches in the earlier stories. Its forty dramatic incidents were admir­ ably suited for serialized storytelling or for use as die basis of popular dramatic skits. In content the Sui Yang-ti Yen-shih is an elaborated compendium of all the themes of the earlier fictionized accounts, with particular development of the sex interest. One w riter on Chinese fic­ tion says that the “Colorful History” sold very widely, and that thanks to its incorporation of the lurid stories of the Mi-lou Chi, Yang-ti be­ came, among the common people, the most familiar example of an extravagant and corrupt monarch.90 The “Colorful History” contains the poetical introductions that are so f a m ilia r in modern popular fic­ tion, and these occasionally make a feeble effort to point the moral lesson of the incidents they introduce. But the purpose of the work was to entertain a popular audience, and in doing this it spread a stereotype in which spectacular extravagance and sexual license are

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far more emphasized than violations of ritual, moral, and political norms. A somewhat more sober account of Yang-ti appears in the Sui Tang Yen-i, which dates from the late seventeenth century.61 Its author tells us that he drew on earlier tales but also on the accounts in the his­ tories. He m ade extensive use of the Sui Yang-ti Yen-shih,62 b u t he om itted much of its titillating detail and replaced the more lurid de­ scriptions w ith euphemisms. Moreover, his introductory passages and asides are more explicitly moral in intent. In short, the Sui Tang Yen-i is clearly more “respectable” than the “Colorful History.” Nevertheless, its utterly black image of Yang-ti is clearly derived from the popular tradition. The “toning down” of the Yang-ti story in the Sui Tang Yen-i was in part, perhaps, a reflection of the increasingly puritanical mores encouraged by official neo-Confucianism or perhaps also a re­ action against the vogue of pornographic fiction that had produced the Chin-p’ing Mei and the “Colorful History.” Its more respectable tone may also have served to protect authors and readers from the govern­ m ent censors and book-burners of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Sui T ang Yen-i certainly carried the popular image of Yang-ti into many a gentry and city household where the Sui Yang-ti Yen-shih would have been regarded as too salacious for family reading. In another novel of the sixteenth or the seventeenth century—a novel which may have been influenced by the revival of popular Taoism— Yang-ti is shown as having a cosmically evil influence: The next day he [the Venerable Teacher] takes possession of his Sun Palace where he gives audience to his subjects. Suddenly from the north an atmos­ phere of dissatisfaction reaches the heavens. The Venerable Teacher dis­ cusses it with his followers. The cause is the misrule of Emperor Yang of Sui. The evil influence of the cosmos fills heaven and the subjects of the Supreme Ruler start a rebellion.08 There can be little doubt that the cKuan-cKi accounts and their successors influenced the elite image just as the historical records in­ fluenced the popular image. It is w orth noting that Ssu-ma Kuang, in the compilation of the Tzu-chth Tung-chien, specifically instructed his staff not to be afraid to draw upon such anecdotes and tales as were consistent w ith an accepted historical version of a given event.64 In the Tung-chien s account of Yang-ti’s reign a num ber of these works were consulted; in some cases their versions were rejected, but in others they unquestionably colored the final narrative.66 Moreover, despite their moral strictures against fiction, the literati read it avidly; and one m ight speculate th at when, from the eighteenth century on, they re­ ferred to the misrule of Yang-ti in a memorial to the throne, the image

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presented in the Sui Yang-ti Yen-shih and the Sui Tang Yen-4 was as likely to be in their minds as the image found in the Sui-shu. It would be too much to say that the elite and popular images of Yang-ti fused into a single myth, but it is certain that the two images, influencing each other, have drawn closer together during the thirteen centuries since the death of Yang-ti. The myth of Yang-ti persists in the People’s China today, and there it has been further embroidered with the demonology of vulgar Marx­ ism. In a small popular volume called “Talks on Chinese History,” the chapter concerning Yang-ti is headed: "Yang-ti Builds the Canal to View the Hortensia Flowers.”66 Here are the familiar stories, partly from the histories, more from the stories and novels. Extravagance, licentiousness, and oppression of the people are laid out in well-worn clichés, and the new Marxist terms of opprobrium are added. Yang-ti becomes a "feudal autocrat,” and a particularly oppressive representa­ tive of this reprehensible type. A work with some scholarly pretensions is Han Kuo-ch’ing’s Sui Yang-ti, published by the Hupeh People’s Publishing House in 1957. The treatment is an incredible mishmash of Communist clichés and uncritical retailing of accounts from popular stories and the "feudal ruling class” histories. The author’s Marxism has apparently failed to liberate him from the old mythology of bad-last rulers or from the stereotyped image of Yang-ti that was the joint product of the interests of the elite and the popular imagination. Here is his final judgment: Yang-ti had the animal courage and the ambition of Ch’in Shih-huang-ti and Han Wu-ti, but his abilities were not the equal of theirs; he was as cruelly tyrannical as Chieh [the last ruler] of Hsia and Chou [the last ruler] of Shang, but in treachery and coldbloodedness he exceeded them. He had all the extravagance and fantastic licentiousness of Tung-hun Hou of the Ch’i and Hou-chu of the Ch’en [last rulers of the Southern Ch’i and Ch’en respectively], but their extravagant palaces [named] did not approach the grand scale of Yang-ti’s Western Plaisance and Maze Pavilion. Yang-ti was truly a grand composite of ancient Chinese rulers. But he had few of their good points, while their treachery and cruelty, their licentiousness and extravagance, were all embodied in him. Therefore we say that his achievement was slight and his guilt was heavy; his goodness little, his evil great. He constituted a barrier to social development [!] He was the tyrannical ruler [pao-chiin] of Chinese history, the criminal oppressor of the people.67 Of tiie three problems discussed in this essay—Yang-ti the person­ ality, Yang-ti the political stereotype, and Yang-ti the villain of story and drama—the first must be the object of more intensive research, of study that proceeds in close relation with a deepening scholarly under­ standing of Chinese psychology and historiography. The third, which

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has been largely exploratory in this paper, could only be fully devel­ oped if other figures from Chinese history and folklore were subjected to similar study and if the techniques of such study were perfected through testing and progressive refinement. The second, the genesis and evolution of a political stereotype, likewise deserves far fuller treat­ m ent than has been attem pted here. For example we can now only speculate as to when and how the authority of such politically moti­ vated stereotyping began to wane; there is evidence that those who analyzed the fall of dynasties from the Sung onward tended to do so in somewhat more “rational” terms and, when moralizing, to point the finger of blame toward the bad last minister or servitor and not to the monarch himself.68 D id this reflect the increasingly despotic character of the Chinese throne and its consequent immunity from moralistic criticism? Yet those who have observed the Chinese Communist demonography of Chiang Kai-shek m ight wonder whether the authority of the “bad last ruler” image has been altogether dissipated. Rather it would appear to be one of those elements in the Confucian tradition that lingers on with a semblance of vitality long after the system which gave it point has been fragm ented and dispersed.

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FENG TAO : AN ESSAY ON CONFUCIAN LOYALTY

During the eighteenth century, the editors of the Hsü Ttmgchih classified disloyal ministers and officers into ten groups. In the category reserved for the worst examples were only two men, the soldier Hou I (886-965) and the minister Feng Tao (882-954), both of the period of the Five Dynasties (907-59) and both accused of having “confounded the great relationships and not known shame.”1 The Hsü T’ung-chih, which consists largely of biographies of the Tang, Five Dynasties, Sung, and Yiian periods, was compiled by im­ perial order in the years 1767-85, during the Chm g dynasty. Under the circumstances,2 the Chinese editors, as one would expect, placed a great deal of emphasis on the question of dynastic loyalty and expressed themselves strongly about those who had disgraced the profession of “official.” It is not surprising that they should consider Feng Tao repre­ hensible, for no other man had served as a chief minister to five different imperial houses and ten emperors. Hou I could be taken less seriously as he was by origin a mere soldier and, unlike Feng Tao, a devout Bud­ dhist who had never pretended to be a Confucian.3 But the editors were, in a sense, not responsible for heaping so much odium on Feng Tao. They were merely carrying to a logical conclusion the judgment of two famous Sung historians, Ou-yang Hsiu (1007—72) and Ssu-ma Kuang (1019-89), who had in the eleventh century made a new and vigorous Confucianism the basis of their historiography. Ou-yang Hsiu, rewriting the history of the Five Dynasties, singled out Feng Tao as the symbol of the period’s degeneracy. It was in his preface to Feng Tao’s biography that he made his pronouncements on honor and loyalty and bemoaned the fact that the prominent Confucians of the time lacked both.* Ssu-ma Kuang enlarged upon this in the Tzuchih t’ung-chien and argued that whatever good Feng Tao might have done by remaining in office was as nothing since he had lived without honor. “The Superior Man [ta-jen] will achieve humanity through sacri­ fice but not prolong his life if it would destroy that humanity.”“

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These were very strong words to use about a man who had been respected in his lifetime. Feng Tao was highly regarded among many of his contemporaries as a conscientious Confucian, a tem perate man, and even a model Chief Minister. For nearly a hundred years after his death this reputation survived in some circles, although it was acknowl­ edged that he had done little to justify the faith placed in him by the various emperors. Among those who thought well of him were Fan Chih (911-64), the first historian of the Five Dynasties,8 Hsiieh Chiicheng (912-81) and the other compilers of the Chiu wu-tai shih,1 and later, Wu C hu-hou (fl. 1060-86), a contemporary of Ou-yang Hsiu and Ssu-ma Kuang.8 But the adverse judgment of the two great Sung his­ torians prevailed, and from then onward Feng Tao was the example of how not to serve a dynasty and the butt of many jokes about loyalty. His name even went into the Chinese idiom in somewhat the same way as “the Vicar of Bray” went into the English. W hat was Feng Tao really like? Was he really unworthy of the respect his contemporaries had for him? Or did his contemporaries really regard him as highly as has been made out? Also, did he deserve to be “revalued” in the annals of China or was he merely a victim of a great change in social, political, and philosophical values? This paper proposes to consider some of the possible answers to these questions. The period in which Feng Tao lived has been given little attention by W estern historians. Even among Chinese historians the Five Dy­ nasties have always been treated either as an extension of the T ang or as the prelude to the Sung. Only recently has a more systematic ap­ proach begun to reveal the significance of the period as a time of great social and political change,9 lending a new dimension to its usual char­ acterization as a time of anarchy and confusion. So unstable were the conditions that the T ang empire was divided interm ittently among six to eight “kingdoms,” and North China saw a succession of five dynasties, the longest of which lasted sixteen years and the shortest only four. North China was especially unstable. The rebellion of An Lu-shan in the middle of the eighth century resulted in the loss to central control of much of North China, and throughout the ninth century the region of Ho-pei (roughly the present province of H opei) proceeded to de­ velop independently of the rest of the empire. The descendants of An Lu-shan’s officers, including many non-Chinese (Khitan, Hsi, Koreans, and Uighur Turks), commanded the three major armies that came to dom inate'the affairs of the area, and in the third decade of the ninth century, after a series of abortive attem pts to appoint its own governors.

WANG GUNGWU 190 die imperial court gave up trying to control internal affairs there. In line with its policy of tolerance, the imperial government resigned itself to accepting tribute in lieu of regular taxes from the arrogant military governors of the three “provinces” of Lu-lung, Ch’eng-te, and Wei-po in the Ho-pei region.10 Feng Tao was a man of Ho-pei. According to him, his family was originally from Chi-chou in Ch eng-te province, but, as far as we know, his immediate ancestors had lived for a long while in Ying-chou.11 Although not far from Chi-chou, Ying-chou came eventually under the jurisdiction of the military governor of Lu-lung (capital at Yuchou, the modem Peking). Ying-chou was one of the frontier pre­ fectures of this extensive province and one that was often fought over by rival governors from the east, west, and south. The situation there was especially unstable during the last decade of the ninth century, and if Feng Tao did spend his early years in his home town, it is possible to imagine him growing up under conditions that would have well pre­ pared him for the troubled era of the Five Dynasties. The province of Lu-lung was notorious for its powerful army, whose organization of guards chose the governor or unseated him virtually at will. From 821 to 894, for example, the province had nineteen governors, one of whom governed for twenty-two years. The eighteen remaining governors averaged less than three years each. In fact, of the nineteen governors, only four died in office (two of them within a year of taking office) and one retired (also within a year). Of the rest, six were killed and eight were driven out, in most cases by the very guards organization that had put them in.12 This frequent change of governors would have made administration virtually impossible had it not been for officials recruited locally from the gentry families of the province. These families provided the literate assistants to the governor and to his aides and some of the accountants and clerks who handled the routine business of provincial government. This local “civil service” was not entirely independent of the central government at Chang-an. It was possible for the senior officials to acquire honorific titles and to have a minor court rank while holding a local provincial office. Eventually, if some of them decided that it was to their advantage to leave for the capital, their titles and qualifica­ tions would give them a fair chance of getting a regular official appoint­ ment. If, on the other hand, their intention was to follow their careers within Lu-lung province, they had to develop a high degree of resilience. In order to survive the quick succession of governors, the wise official avoided too close an identification with any particular governor and cultivated a reputation for discretion and trustworthiness. By contrast,

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young men of gentry families elsewhere in the empire, being without an autonomous provincial service in which to build their careers, were dependent ultim ately on the favor of the central government for ad­ vancem ent Feng Tao, having grown up on the border of the province, would have been well aware that in Lu-lung he could rise to high pro­ vincial office w ith only local competition. There is no evidence that he ever left the province in his youth, nor is there evidence that experience elsewhere would have qualified him better for his local career. Regionalism had by this time so undermined the T ang empire that all that was needed to destroy the empire altogether was another siz­ able rebellion, and this W ang Hsien-chih and Huang Ch’ao provided from 875 on. The rebellion burned its way through most of China, leaving in its trail a greatly intensified regional growth. W hat land remained in the hands of the T ang im perial court was then bitterly fought over until Chu W en, one of Huang Ch’ao’s generals who had surrendered to the T ang, thought himself ready to found a new dynasty. W ithout waiting to crush the regional governments which had parti­ tioned the old T ang empire, he established himself as emperor of Liang. The problem of regionalism persisted and troubled the empire for the years that formed the period of the Five Dynasties. The dynasties were: Interlude 947 (907-23) Liao (Khitan) emperor T’ai-tsung Tai-tsu (Chu W en), 907-12 Prince of Ying (Chu Yu-kuei), 912-13 (Yeh-lii Te-kuang), 927-47 Prince of Chiin (Chu Yu-chen), HAN (947-50) 913-23 Kao-tsu (Liu Chih-yiian), 947-48 t ’a n g (923-36) Yin-ti (Liu Ch’eng-yu), 948-50 Chuang-tsung (Prince of Chin, Li c h o u (951-59) Ts’un-hsii), 923—26 Ming-tsung (Li Ssu-yiian), 926-33 Tai-tsu (K uoW ei),951-54 Shih-tsung (Ch’ai Jung), 954-59 Prince of Sung (Li Ts’ung-hou), Prince of Liang (Ch’ai Tsung-hsün)} 933-34 959 Prince of Lu (Li Ts’ung-k’o ), 934-36 LIANG

(936-46) Kao-tsu (Shih Ching-t’ang), 936—42 Shao-ti (Shih Ch’ung-kuei), 942-46 c h in

These dynasties, when not fighting for survival, were struggling against the deep-rooted regionalism that had grown up during the ninth century. Feng Tao was bom just after the peak of the Huang Ch’ao rebellion in 882 m^the county of Ching-ch’eng in Ying prefecture. Feng Tao’s family had at this time every reason to be grateful for the regionalism

that was to destroy the Tang dynasty, for it was this very regionalism that protected the Ho-pei region from the Huang Ch’ao rebels, the only region, except Szechwan, to enjoy this freedom. After the rebellion, the region became one of the major battlegrounds in the long struggle for supremacy among the military governors of North China. Before Feng Tao was ten, there had been a mutiny of the prefectural garrison, which the county magistrate had been able to put down only by rounding up some thousand citizens in the area. This magistrate, Liu Jen-kung ( d. 914), later governor of Lu-lung province, was the father of the man who gave Feng Tao his first provincial post.18 Feng Tao’s autobiography claims that his family was descended from the aristocratic Feng clan of the old commandery of Ch’ang-lo (also called Hsin-tu, later Chi-chou, the present Chi-hsien).14 His im­ mediate ancestors, however, appear to have been content to be gentle­ man farmers professing themselves Confucians. None of them was known to have held any office, and Feng Tao seems to have been proud of his humble but once eminent family. Liu Jen-kung must have known the Feng family, a prominent one in his county, and possibly it was through Liu Jen-kung that Feng Tao was able to get a post at the provincial capital. We first find him mentioned in our records only after he was twentyfive, that is, after 907. A great mystery surrounds his youth. He himself says nothing about it except that he had lost his parents during the troubled times when he was young and thus did not know the exact date of his birth.15 In the eulogistic biography preserved in the Chiu wu-tai shih, based probably on his Account of Conduct ( hsingchuang),16 it is said that “when he was young, he was sincere, fond of learning, and talented in writing. He was not ashamed to have poor clothes and poor food. Apart from carrying rice to offer to his parents, he worked only on his reading and reciting. Although his house might be covered by a heavy fall of snow or his whole mat by thick dust, he remained undisturbed.”17 It is difficult to determine how much truth there is in these stock phrases about the filial son and earnest scholar. They do, however, match the account of the deep effect on him of his father s death and they agree with his later frugality and stoicism. Although the greater part of what we know of Feng Tao seems to have come from Feng Tao himself or from his sons and friends, there is no reason to doubt that this general picture of him as a simple man with the conventional vir­ tues is a correct one. Certainly his youth was filled with vivid experiences. In 894, when he was twelve, the governor of his province was driven out of the capital

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and, while passing through the county of Ching-ch eng, was m urdered by the neighboring governor from the province to the east.18 Six years later, Ching-ch’eng was the battleground between Chu Wen, fighting in the name of the T ang emperor, and the new governor of Lu-lung province. The prefecture was captured by Chu W ens forces and Feng Tao probably experienced a little of Chu Wen’s administration.19 Feng Tao was eighteen at the time, old enough to have been conscious of the military and political struggles taking place. His early career at Yu-chou, the provincial capital, was precarious, and it is claimed in his biography that he counseled the brash young governor Liu Shou-kuang (d. 914) to be cautious and was jailed for his pains. After his release in 911 he escaped to T’ai-yiian to join the leader of the Sha-t’o Turks, at that time the main opponent of Chu Wen’s Liang dynasty and the professed leaders of the movement to “restore the T’ang.” There Feng Tao, who was then twenty-nine, entered the service of the old eunuch Chang Ch’eng-yeh (846-922) in the Office of Army Supervision,20 serving in this office for eight years. His service was without distinction and there is no record of what he did. As he was known only for his literary talents, it is supposed that he acted as one of the eunuch’s secretaries. H e was no longer young at the time ( twentynine to thirty-seven years old ) and had no special skill to justify rapid promotion. W hat he learned, however, must have been very im portant to him and may even explain many features of his later life. Chang had served off and on for more than forty years at the T ang court and could have taught his aide many things about court practice, the role of a civilian in a m ilitary organization, and the pitfalls awaiting an official in such unstable times. Feng Tao apparently absorbed much useful information from the successful eunuch, for soon after the Sha-t’o leader, the Prince of Chin, had lost his chief secretary during a battle in 918, Feng Tao was promoted to this post over the head of an ex-T’ang offi­ cial from a distinguished family.21 As chief secretary to the prince most likely to succeed to the throne at a tim e when most of the Prince’s earlier supporters were either dead or very old, Feng Tao was virtually assured of a successful career. Almost immediately after his appointment, he made a show of cour­ age by s ta n d in g up to the Prince during one of the Prince’s childish bursts of anger.22 It is im portant to note the prominence given the accounts of Feng Tao’s courage in front of Liu Shou-kuang in 911 and before the Prince of Chin in 919 in Feng Tao’s biography. Never again until the last year of his life did he disagree with his emperor. His sons and his friends must have been conscious of this and after his death carefully inserted the accounts of these incidents in his biography. The

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fact is that when Feng Tao admonished the Prince of Chin, he was still under the patronage of Chang Ch’eng-yeh and was to remain under his influence until Chang’s death at the end of 922. His so-called act of courage before the Prince in 919 was thus made while still a protégé of Chang’s and reflected not the moralistic protests of a Confucian literatus but the tactful advice of an intimate counselor. The theme of intimacy and highly personal relationship between ruler and minister which derived from the old provincial organization runs through the Five Dynasties. Such relationships were evident at the very first court Feng Tao served, the court of the Prince of Chin himself, better known as the Emperor Chuang-tsung ( 923-26 ). This was the court of the Tang “restoration,” and Chuang-tsung set about restor­ ing the Tang court organization with the eunuchs and their entourage as well as filling most of the posts in the imperial central government But at the same time, like the Liang emperors before him, he retained most of his provincial officers by giving them posts as commissioners around him, and made his commanders generals in the imperial army. Chuang-tsung was, moreover, unusually fond of acting and kept his own troupe of actors and musicians, who were allowed to advise him on affairs of state. In the ensuing struggle for power among the various groups, the bureaucrats and the generals who were remote from the emperor lost. Of the remaining three groups—eunuchs, actors, and exprovincial officers—the most influential was the favored acting troupe, which came from the lowest class of society. Against the actors, even Kuo Ch’ung-t’ao (d. 926), Chuang-tsung’s most intimate adviser, who had served since 917 in his provincial government, was powerless. And in 926, the actors and the eunuchs were to cause the death of Kuo, thus touching off the mutiny that brought Chuang-tsung to his death and the “restoration” to an end.23 This was the last time the eunuchs played a prominent part in poli­ tics for many centuries and the last time actors had a chance to do so. The period 923-26 was not a time for the bureaucrats, and it was just as well that Feng Tao was in mourning for about half that time. But he could not have missed the significance of the power struggle in Chuang-tsung’s court. It was not between the eunuchs and the bureau­ crats as in the past but between imperial favorites, including eunuchs, and the new class of former provincial officers. The bureaucrats, utterly discredited by their weak leadership in the last years of the Tang,24 could not regain their power and authority without aligning themselves with one side or the other. Feng Tao and his colleagues were forced to act as old members of the provincial organization rather than simply as traditionally aloof Confucian bureaucrats.

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Feng Tao played no part in any of the maneuvers for power. Under Chuang-tsung’s successor, Ming-tsung (926-33), his literary ability was further recognized and he rose quickly to the post of Chief Min­ ister. Just before this appointment, there was more evidence that the bureaucrat was at a disadvantage against the officer from the provincial cadre. W hile Jen Huan, the Chief Minister, tried to appoint a literatus of known ability to assist him. An Ch’ung-hui and his supporters of the provincial cadre supported a man who was pliant and nearly illiterate. Emperor Ming-tsung suggested, as a compromise, Feng Tao, who was acceptable largely because “he had no quarrel with any living thing” ( yii-wu wu-ching).25 Soon after his appointment, he became a trusted friend of Ming-tsung. He knew how to flatter, he had a good sense of humor, and at the same time he had an air of earnestness and a readiness to quote the Confucian classics to support any advice he gave. This was the key to his success with the nine other emperors he served in the twenty years after Ming-tsung’s death. W ith the tolerant Ming-tsung, he first perfected the art of good-natured advice and gentle flattery and was recognized by his contemporaries as a man skilled in the intim ate and personal approach to emperors. The emperors liked him, above all, because “he had no quarrel with any living thing” and never failed to have pleasing, comforting words. From 927 to his death in 954, there were only two breaks in Feng Tao’s career as prim e m inister and fond intim ate of emperors. In the middle of 934 he was sent out to be governor of a minor province for more than a year. This was directly connected with his failure to act with propriety when Ming-tsung’s adopted son, the Prince of Lu, claimed the throne from Ming-tsung’s young son, the Prince of Sung. The act of usurpation early in 934, just four months after Ming-tsung’s death, had taken Feng Tao by surprise. Feng became unduly agitated and, while waiting for the Prince of Lu’s entry into the capital of Loyang, Feng ordered his secretary to call upon the Prince to ascend the throne. W hen the secretary refused, Feng himself exhorted the Prince to do so.26 His efforts did not save him entirely and soon afterward he was asked to leave for the provincial appointment. On his return from die provinces in the m iddle of 935, he was unemployed for about six months, the only time he was unemployed in his whole career. But he seems to have been indispensable, and by early 936 he was back at the court as Ssu-k’ung, one of the highest offices of the empire.27 The incident of Feng Tao’s intervention at the gates of Lo-yang is om itted in his official biography. In fact, while Feng Tao was alive, no attem pt was made to compile the Veritable Records ( Shih-lu ) of the two brief reigns of the Prince of Sung and the Prince of Lu, and it was

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not until 957, three years after Feng Tao’s death, that the first official record of his part in the accession of the Prince of Lu appeared. Before that, his part was probably well known among his contemporaries, but no one, except possibly the compilers of the Account of Conduct of Lu Tao ( 8 6 6 - 9 4 1 ) , the secretary who refused to comply with his orders, placed it on record.28 It is also an interesting reflection on Chinese bi­ ographical compilations that a dishonorable incident like this should not appear in Feng Tao’s own biography in the Chiu wu-tai shih but only as a story in the career of Lu Tao. Feng Taos loss of court office in 9 3 4 -3 5 was short and his discom­ fiture virtually ignored by his friends. But his loss of office in the middle of 944, during the reign of Shao-ti ( 9 4 2 —46 ) of Chin, was more serious. Once again Feng Tao was sent out to a minor province for a year and a half, and after that to another until the Khitan conquest of North China in early 947. This time he was away for two and a half years, very important years in Chinese history. The Khitan victory, which finally cut off the sixteen northern prefectures from Chinese control for 4 2 0 years,29 could not in any way be attributed to Feng Tao. In fact, he was probably appointed to the provinces because he opposed the war policy of the emperors chief advisers. W hether or not this was so, it is clear that he was of little use to the Chin court. It was apparently the consensus that “Tao is a good prime minister only for normal times, for he can do nothing to rescue the empire in a period of difficulties, rather like a C han priest with no skill in falconry.”30 Loss of court office in this case proved no embarrassment to Feng Tao. When the Khitans entered the Chin capital, K’ai-feng, Feng Tao left his province to pay his respects to their emperor and found himself welcomed as someone who did not have the taint of having defied them. He promptly exercised his tact on the emperor and, by fortuitous circumstances, soon afterward found himself in a position to save many Chin officials’ lives.31 Feng Tao’s long career also had its more positive side. In 9 3 2 , under the Emperor Ming-tsung, he and two of his colleagues ordered the editing and first printing of the Nine Classics, one of the best-known events of the Five Dynasties period and one that was to revolutionize education and civil service recruitment in the centuries following.82 Under Chin Kao-tsu ( 9 3 6 - 4 2 ) , Feng Tao was the head of the important mission to the Khitans in 9 38, which preceded the official h a n d in g -o v er of the sixteen northern prefectures of the Ho-pei and Ho-tung regions (present northern Hopei and Shansi provinces). Feng Tao was present when all the prefectural and county records, including those of his own prefecture of Ying-chou and county of Ching-ch’eng, were delivered to

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the Khitans. At this memorable ceremony, Feng Tao saw his county being m ade into the southernmost county of the Khitan empire. He handled the mission so well that on his return Kao-tsu entrusted him with the difficult task of maintaining the peace. At Kao-tsu’s deathbed, he was asked to see that Kao-tsu’s baby son succeeded to the throne. But Feng Tao did not think this was wise and, after Kao-tsu s death, helped in making his nephew, aged twenty-eight, the new emperor (Shao-ti, 942-46).33 Under the Han dynasty (947-50), he lived very quietly and wrote the unusual autobiography, the CKang-lo lao tzu-hsii, that was to turn the weight of historical opinion against him during the Sung ( see dis­ cussion below of Feng Tao’s biographers). But his active career really came to an end in the first weeks of 951, when Kuo W ei ( Chou Tai-tsu, 951-54 ) sent him as emissary to welcome a member of the Liu clan who aspired to the Han throne. Feng Tao’s reputation as a sincere and honest man was the reason for his choice, and he may have suspected that he was being used as a decoy to bring a claimant to the throne into Kuo W ei’s hands. Feng Tao was entirely successful: Kuo Wei killed the prince and seized the empire. For his part in Kuo Wei’s smooth accession, Feng Tao was further rew arded with the highest court titles. He was already an old man of sixty-nine, old enough to be Kuo W ei’s father, and so respected that Kuo W ei never called him by name.34 It has been noted that Feng Tao never openly opposed the wishes of the emperors he served. H e criticized the Lu-lung governor Liu Shoukuang in 911, and stood up to the Prince of Chin in 919, but there­ after always accepted his emperor’s decisions, right or wrong, without question or protest. In his last year of life, almost as if he had suddenly become conscious of this defect in his record, Feng Tao reversed him­ self and made a spirited protest against Em peror Shih-tsung’s (954-59) proposal personally to lead his armies into battle. The protest angered Shih-tsung and was ignored. Two weeks later Shih-tsung won a great victory, and less than a m onth after that Feng Tao was dead following a very short illness. In his third and final venture into criticizing an emperor Feng Tao had blundered dram atically.35 There is no doubt that Feng Tao himself and most of his contem­ poraries thought that he lived a Confucian life and acted as a Confucian in his public career. Few men of his distinction in the T’ang and the Five Dynasties periods could claim comparable aloofness from Taoism and Buddhism. The insistently Confucian and conventional tone that permeates all his writings and reported conversations was so obvious that his contemporaries delighted in telling stories attributing to him

WANG GUNGWU 198 some of the Confucian absurdities of the time. These stories, though probably apocryphal, convey a vivid impression of prevailing attitudes. Feng Tao’s punctiliousness regarding the taboo on personal names in conversation produced this story using a pun on his own name. Feng Tao, commenting on a young scholar, Li Tao, pointed out that the young man’s name sounded like his own, but added, in an unlikely joke at his own expense, that Li Tao’s tao had the character for “inch” under the phonogram that was Feng Tao’s personal name. In the Chinese idiom, a man without “inch” was one without a proper sense of values.89 Another story concerns Feng Tao’s failure while governor of a prov­ ince in Honan to repair a temple to Confucius after a dozen or so “liquor households” had petitioned to be allowed to do so. Someone then ap­ pended a poem to the petition mocking Confucian scholars who reached high office but waited for such lowly people to repair Confucian temples.87 These stories reflect an age renowned neither for its Confucians nor for the prevailing view of Confucianism, and it is important, I think, to see Feng Tao clearly in this context. The cultural history of the Five Dynasties period has been notable for its anarchy and for hermits and great poets in the tz’u form. The prose of the time was later regarded as exceptionally bad and the thought and the thinkers undistinguished. It was under such circumstances that Feng Tao became famous in his time as a prose writer and Confucian. Among the emperors he served, two could be said to have been ardent believers in the supernatural ( the Prince of Lu and Chin Kao-tsu ). All the rest were also practicing Taoists and Buddhists.38 Feng Tao was an intimate friend to at least eight of the eleven emperors and had opportunity enough to increase that inti­ macy by sharing in their religious practices if not in their faith. But he seems to have been able to remain on intimate terms without reference to religion. In all the literature there is on Feng Tao’s relations with his emperors, he is only once said to have been consulted on anything not pertaining to the Confucian state. This was when the Emperor Chin Kao-tsu asked him about the value of the Tao-te ching and invited him to attend the classes given by a prominent Taoist at the palace. It is not known whether Feng Tao ever went, but his answer to the emperor was entirely consistent with his way of mixing flattery and a ponderous earnestness. He gave the tolerant but equivocal reply that neither the Taoist lecturing on Lao Tzu nor the Buddhist receiving his vows should be taken lightly.39 In fact, Feng Tao’s firm adherence to Confucianism was unusual for his time. Most of his successful contemporaries were inconsistent in their beliefs: for example, the two men Chao Feng (885-935) and Liu

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Hsü (888—947), both of whom were also from Lu-lung province in Ho­ pei and had served as Chief Ministers together with him. Chao Feng became violently anti-Buddhist in later life but had been a Buddhist priest as a youth. Liu Hsü (who was related to Feng Tao by m arriage) was closely associated with both Buddhist priests and Taoist hermits. Again, Ma Yin-sun (d. 953), Chief M inister in 936 when Feng Tao was out of favor, had started life as a great adm irer of Han Yü ( 786-824 ) and then turned to Buddhism w ith enthusiasm.40 Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the majority of men at the court were either indifferent or lukewarm toward religion and Confucianism. This was in keeping with the traditions of the ninthcentury T ang court—traditions of artistic virtuosity and sophistication which, from the Confucian point of view, were very superficial. Feng Tao seems to have scorned these traditions and is known to have played his part in suppressing “the frivolous and unstable” ( fou-tsao ) men de­ scended from distinguished T’ang families while helping impoverished scholars of promise.41 In the well-known anecdote of Feng Tao’s en­ counter with two snobbish court officials who laughed at his use of a popular reference book of Confucian quotations—the Tu-yüan tse (a sort of “selections from the classics” )—Feng Tao is said to have retorted that the old quotations were surely more worthy of reading than the pretty phrases of the examination hall plagiarized from the successful candidates.42 Yet it is clear that Feng Tao was not an impressive Confucian in any way. His professed Confucianism was supported by a limited knowl­ edge of the classics, and even his understanding of the Confucian state seems to have been vague. It is, of course, easy to be unfair to him since his collected works have not survived. Apart from a few congratulatory messages and a num ber of formal addresses to the throne which had little to do with either Confucian institutions or state policy, we cannot identify any surviving state papers as having been w ritten by Feng Tao.48 Feng Tao undeniably had a p art in the memorials from the Imperial Secretariat ( chung-shu) and the Chancellery ( men-hsia)y particularly during the reigns of T’ang M ing-tsung and Chin Kao-tsu when he was the senior minister. But we have evidence that he avoided all difficult policy decisions, especially if they involved finance or the army. These were the two realms where there was always potential conflict with more ambitious and specialized officers, and he was probably prudent to stay away from them and leave them to the military secretaries and finance commissioners. On the other hand, he was not active in the strictly Confucian spheres of government either. There is no evidence that he contributed anything to the fields of rites, law, music and cere­ monies, examination, and recruitm ent. Here again, he preferred to

WANG GUNGWU 200 leave the work to specialists. If this is taken together with the anec­ dote about Feng Tao’s dependence on a Confucian phrase book, it sus­ tains the picture of Feng Tao as a very superficial Confucian. There remains the historic printing of the Nine Classics in 932, which nearly every history ascribes to Feng Tao. But it is by no means clear that Feng Tao himself initiated the project. The other Chief Minister in 932, Li Yii (d. 935), who was a great admirer of Han Yii, is also named, and since the knowledge of the advantages of printing had come from Szechwan after the conquest of the kingdom of Shu in 926 and Li Yii had been the senior executive secretary in the Szechwan cam­ paign, it is more likely that he or one of his colleagues during the cam­ paign was responsible for proposing the official enterprise.44 The work of re-editing the classics for printing was left largely in the hands of Tien Min (880-971) and his assistants, and Feng Tao is not known to have contributed any scholarship. His Sung biographer Ou-yang Hsiu went so far as to give him no credit at all for the printing of the classics. Feng Tao’s main connection with the publication seems to have been that he was the senior Chief Minister in 932 and still the highest official in the empire when the completed work was presented to the throne in 953.45 What then have we left to help us to define, if possible, Feng Tao’s Confucianism? We have extracts from a few memorials, we have his many reported conversations, and finally we have two informal but important documents written in 950 when he was sixty-eight. The extracts from memorials do not reveal much. Several of them exhorted the Emperor Ming-tsung ( 926-33 ) to be careful and to learn the lessons of his predecessor’s downfall. Others assured Ming-tsung that the empire, primarily because of the emperor’s sagacity, was at peace.46 We also have one that dealt with the order of precedence at the audiences of the Emperor Chin Kao-tsu (936-42).47 Perhaps the best example of Feng Tao’s Confucianism can be found in his memorial of the second month of 933 concerning the education of Ming-tsung’s heir apparent. Here he argued that the empire’s foundations lay with having virtuous men around the throne and showed how Chuang-tsung’s (923-26) failure to rule by virtue (te) was the main reason for his downfall. He then argued. The strength of the empire is found in its men. The men at present important to the empire are just the military governors, the prefects, the magistrates, and the county secretaries. If the men are rightly chosen, there is good gov­ ernment. If the men are poorly selected, there will be confusion. One can­ not but choose carefully. As the Book of History says, “It is like treading on a tiger’s tail or walking on spring ice.” Each day there is need for greater caution. I merely ask Your Imperial Majesty not to forget dangers in times of peace and not to forget anarchy in periods of good government.48

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His reported conversations are more interesting. He was the only man in the Five Dynasties period to have snatches of his conversation preserved in the official records. The Chiu wu-tai shih quotes these conversations both in the Basic Annals and in his biography, while scattered throughout the Ts’e-fu yiian-kuei are several more not pre­ served in the official History. Since these two compilations are known to have followed closely the Veritable Records ( shih-lu ), there is no reason to doubt that the conversations were taken from those sources. The Veritable Records were themselves compiled from the Im perial Diary ( ch’i-chü chu), the Court Diary (shih-cheng chi), the Daily Rec­ ord ( jih-li ), and the Account of Conduct ( hsing-chuang ) of each promi­ nent official. At each stage of compilation, the Chief M inister had a great deal to say about w hat was to be included. This was particularly true with regard to the Court Diary, which was compiled by one of the Chief Ministers himself. It is, of course, often noted that Confucians dominated the business of history writing in all dynasties and there is nothing unusual in the inclusion of Feng Tao’s Confucian sayings for their own sake.49 But it is interesting to note that almost all of Feng Tao’s sayings (as well as most of his memorials ) were recorded for the reigns of T ang Ming-tsung and Chin Kao-tsu. These are two of the longer reigns in the period ( seven and six years respectively), and Feng Tao got on very well with both emperors. But a problem does arise when it is noted that their Veritable Records are only two of the four compiled in Feng Tao’s lifetime, the other two being those of Chin Shao-ti (942-46) and Han Kao-tsu (947-48).50 Excluding the Khitan emperor in 947 and T ang Chuang-tsung, whom Feng Tao did not serve as Chief Minister, there were five other emperors whose Records were not compiled until three to six years after their death. For the Records of Chin Shao-ti com­ piled in 950-51 the various Diaries were probably incomplete because of the Khitan wars. Feng Tao, who was away from the court during the later half of the reign, m ight not in any case have cared to be associated w ith an emperor who had failed disastrously. As for the Records of Han Kao-tsu compiled in 949, although the reign was so short, we have a full account of Feng Tao’s role in saving the Chinese from the Khitans by the way he spoke to the Khitan emperor. There is, I believe, sufficient evidence to suspect that Feng Tao had a prominent part, if not in the compilation of the Veritable Records, at least in preparing the Im perial and Court Diaries. This does not necessarily mean that Feng Tao tam pered with the archives. Feng Tao did have the right to include or exclude m aterial, and it would be in keeping with his concept of Con­ fucian duty to include as much Confucian wisdom as possible, even his

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own. I have already shown that die one great embarrassment in his career, occurring when the Prince of Lu usurped the throne in 934, was never recorded in his lifetime. When the Records of the two Chin emperors were being compiled in 950-51, it would not have been out of place to consider filling the gap in the official records between 934 and 936, but this was not done. Feng Tao could not have prevented this gap from being filled, but if he was as embarrassed as he appears to have been, he might easily have discouraged it.51 Feng Tao’s reported conversations must therefore be examined in the light of his own involvement in history compilation. Considering how some of his admirers, who noted that he died at the same age as Confucius,52were ready to compare him to Confucius himself, these con­ versations take on the coloration of the “sayings of a sage.” He himself was not averse to making the same comparison, and in a conversation with a colleague about his supporters and detractors, he said, “All men who agree with you will approve of you, all who do not will defame you and nine out of ten perhaps defame me [at the court]. In ancient times, Confucius was a sage and yet he was slandered by Shu-sun Wu-shu. How much more would people slander someone as empty and mean as me!”58 This smacks of false modesty; it mentions Confucius and himself in the same passage while following the convention of comparing oneself unfavorably with the ancient sages. In fact, the most striking thing about the many sayings of this articu­ late sage is their conventionality and their complete lack of originality. A typical conversation ran as follows: The Emperor Ming-tsung asked, “How are the affairs of state?” Feng Tao replied, ‘The crop seasons are regular and the people at peace.” The em­ peror asked again, “Apart from this, what is there to note?” Tao replied, “Your Majesty is pure and virtuous and truly in accord with the wishes of heaven. I have heard that rulers like Yao and Shun have been admired by all and masters like Chieh and Chou have been hated by all. This is the dif­ ference between those with principles and those without. Now Your Majesty carefully observes self-restraint and pays full attention to the art of govern­ ment. The people are not weighed down by taxes and services and tell one another that this is like the years of Yao and the days of Shun. This is merely because the people are satisfied and everyday things are abundant. After the tenth year of Chen-kuan [636], the Minister Wei Cheng memorialized Tang T’ai-tsung, asking that all should be like the beginning of the Chen-kuan period. Now I also wish Your Majesty to think of the good things you did at the beginning of your reign. If Your Majesty would do so, then the empire would be fortunate indeed.”54 Even the pattern of the conversations changed but little. There was the profound Baconian theme followed by the exposition and then the admonition. This was the formula of the sages and, no doubt, Feng

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Tao’s pretensions stem from the noblest of motives—to reaffirm tradition and order in an age of troubles. The consistent, almost dreary, reitera­ tion of Confucian tenets that characterized his conversations reflected a deep conviction that a return to traditional ways, rather than startling innovation, was the solution to the problems besetting the state and the people. Young Confucians of the time, used to the widespread neglect of their creed, m ust have been heartened by the sight of so successful an official espousing Confucianism. The mediocrity of his life and thought, if noted at all by his young admirers, would have detracted little from his singular im portance as proof of the flexibility possible in applying the old Confucian principles. There are, finally, the preface to his poems for a deceased friend and his famous autobiography, the CKang-lo lao tzu-hsü, both w ritten in 950 when he was an old man. The preface, completed in the second month of 950 soon after the death of his fellow provincial and early associate, Liu Shen-chiao (877-950), revealed an intense, in some ways romantic belief in the superiority of Confucian duty. After eulogizing Liu Shen-chiao as a good man who had done harm to no one, Feng Tao took note of his undistinguished public record but asked: W hy then was he so loved by the people in the prefecture he administered? It is really because he did not use whippings and beatings and was not oppres­ sive. He did not take advantage of his office for private ends nor did he harm others to profit himself. He certainly worked in a way becoming a high offi­ cial. He lightened punishment and forgave wrong; he was careful in his con­ duct and economical in his expenditure. It was enough for him to be content with his emoluments and live with decorum. Of all those who served in this capacity, who could not achieve what he did? But the prefects before him were not like that. That is why the people sigh with admiration for him. In these days when the empire has suffered from war and everywhere there can still be seen the consequences of ban­ ditry, when the looms are empty while the taxes are burdensome, when the people are scattered and the granaries depleted, it is not easy to say that there is well-being and peace. If the nobles and provincial officials felt concern for this situation, they would not amass private fortunes, or kill the innocent. If they had realized that people form the base of the country and good gov­ ernment is the life of the people and all acted with benevolence and moder­ ation, what then would there be to praise in the work of Mr. Liu? And why need they fear they will not reach great fame?55 Feng Tao used the occasion to make a general comment on the prevail­ ing standards of public office. He was obviously aware that when rapa­ cious officials were everywhere, the selfless official, even an undistin­ guished one, gained stature. W hether he realized it or not, his com­ ments could have been applied to himself. He stood out in his generation not because of his own excellence, but because he withheld himself

from the decadence around him. It is hard to believe that he was in­ sensitive to his own inadequacies. More likely he was gratified by his own incorruptibility. The death of his friend moved him deeply, and I think it was reflec­ tion upon his friend’s life and small achievements that brought him to think of his own and, about two months afterward, to write his auto­ biography.56 This was a curious piece of writing, quite unprecedented in its form, and more like a skeleton of an autobiography. It carried all his ranks and titles and all the formal information about his family. Only at the end did he set forth what he thought were the minimum require­ ments of a Confucian life. I quietly think of what is important and what is not and what blessings ex­ tend to life and death. Through imperial favors and by strictly following our clan traditions, I have received the great teachings and opened them to others. I have observed filial piety in the home and shown loyalty to the state. Also, my mouth has not spoken what is improper and my gates have not been open to things I should not have. All that I have wished is that I should not deceive earth that is below, man that is with us, and heaven that is above, and have regarded these “three no-deceptions” as a rule of behavior. I have been thus when I was lowly, when I was in high office, when I grew to manhood, and when I was old. In the service of my relatives, my emperor, and my elders, and in my relations with my fellow men, I have been favored by the mercy of heaven. Several times when I encountered trouble and escaped with for­ tune and when I was in the hands of the barbarians and returned safely to the Central Plain [China], it was not due to the devices of man but to the protection of heaven.57 He was a great believer in the good man being protected by heaven and never failed to say so in both prose and poetry on appropriate oc­ casions. As this was obviously an article of faith with him, he must have been sincere in the modesty of the following passage: Thus in the world there is one who is fortunate, one who will have a decent grave when he dies. As he is inferior to the ancients, he does not deserve to be buried with jade or pearl in his mouth, but should have his body prepared in his ordinary clothes and buried simply on a coarse bamboo mat at a place selected because it did not yield crops. There should not be the sacrifice of male goats, for one should abstain from taking life. There should instead only be the sacrifice of things without life.68 As there have not been inscrip­ tions for the graves of three generations of his ancestors, there should also not be an inscription. And as he has no virtue to speak of, there should not be a request for posthumous titles.59 It was probably the death of Liu Shen-chiao that turned Feng Tao’s mind to thoughts of death. And having written about the inconse­ quential life of his friend, he must have wondered how posterity would consider him. He knew well the power of history in Chinese civilization.

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Was his conscience disturbed by the thought of his negative virtues? Or did he believe that he should present his life for the betterm ent of all the Confucians to come? From all that we know of him, I feel that the latter belief would be consistent with his idea of Confucian duty. Feng Tao was certainly no scholar of the classics, nor did he give unbending loyalty to any emperor, but in his adherence to the prevail­ ing brand of Confucianism he was honest and firm. Few of his con­ temporaries would have denied that he was a genuine Confucian. Yet in the age of Confucian revival which followed a century later, he was denounced as despicable, and the new biography w ritten from that vantage point soon became the accepted story of his life. The first to condemn Feng Tao was Ou-yang Hsiu, followed soon after by Ssu-ma Kuang. Both contrasted Feng Tao’s Confucian pre­ tensions with his disloyalty and self-satisfaction. Ssu-ma Kuang care­ fully reinforced his predecessor’s argument to meet the objections to their judgm ent that had been raised by other historians of the time. Men like W u Ch’u-hou had pointed to Feng Tao’s many good acts.60 Others had expressed the opinion that Feng Tao was being made the scapegoat for all the ills of the Five Dynasties period. The defense of Feng Tao ran thus: Thousands of officials had been disloyal. Why pick on Feng Tao? And even if he did act disloyally at least five times, was it so much more hateful to be disloyal more than once? Wasn’t once enough? Ssu-ma Kuang angrily answered, Feng Tao was Chief Minister to five dynasties and eight surnames, like an inn to many travelers. Enemies at the break of dawn would become emperor and minister by evening. He changed his face and transformed his words and never once was he ashamed. Such having been his attitude toward loyalty, what is there to praise if he did do a little good? . . . While the emperors followed one another closely in their rise and fall, Feng Tao prospered as be­ fore. He is the worst of treacherous officials. How can he deserve to be com­ pared with other men?61 This has been the main theme of all of Feng Tao’s later critics—the number of times he had been disloyal. It must have appeared absurd to have a man serve eleven emperors in a row. There was no emperor Feng Tao could have served whom he did not serve. This was unprece­ dented. And even more extraordinary was that he should have held the highest ranks in all but one of these reigns. Certainly no civilian official in the whole history of China had ever had a comparable career. How was he to be classified? How could he be classified? The majority o p in io n was that he was the worst of the worst and a little ridiculous as well.

WANG GUNGWU 206 But there were a few who spoke up in Feng Tao’s favor. For ex­ ample, Wu Ch’u-hou in defending him quoted the famous minister Fu Pi (1004-83), who had compared him to Mencius’ Superior Man (tajen). And Wu Tseng (fl. 1150-60) said that Feng Tao was highly re­ garded by Su Shih (1036—1101) and Wang An-shih (1021-86) and argued that Ou-yang Hsiu was probably very young when he con­ demned Feng Tao. But Wu Ch’u-hou and Wu Tseng were associated with Tsai Ching ( 1046-1125) and Ch’in Kuei ( 1090-1155) respectively, both condemned in Chinese history as “evil officials” ( chien-ch’en ). Their opinions were therefore not taken very seriously.82 After the twelfth century, when Ou-yang Hsiu’s and Ssu-ma Kuang’s views prevailed, there were very few voices raised in Feng Tao’s de­ fense. There were Wang Shih-chen ( 1528-93 ) and Li Chih ( 1527-1602 ), but both were regarded as literary men trying to be “different.” On the other hand, the praise of the Ming martyr Wen Huang (1585-1645) was more difficult to dismiss. His main argument was that Feng Tao was a good man with honest intentions who had been cruelly dealt with by historians. It is indeed true that the only historian of distinction to try to understand Feng Tao was Chao I ( 1727-1814), who argued that loyalty was simply not a problem during that period; but even he main­ tained that Feng Tao was without shame. On the whole, the few voices raised on behalf of Feng Tao have been regarded as either eccentricity or special pleading.83 The fact is that the Five Dynasties period was an extraordinary one. The conditions at the end of the Tang and throughout those dynasties were unprecedented and the actions of a whole generation were pecu­ liar to the times. Never before had the empire been divided into seven or eight states, and there was no way to fit the scheme of things into the orthodox view of imperial succession (cheng-t'ung). Was there in fact an empire? After all, none of the so-called emperors controlled more than a third of the T’ang empire at any one time. And there was no reason why the cheng-t'ung should have remained in the north. In Szechwan to the west, in the Yangtze provinces, even in Kwangtung and later in Fukien, claims to be the only true emperor were made by various people from time to time. Tlie claims of the rulers of Nan Tang on the Yangtze were no less valid than those of the northern dynasties. Then after fifty-three years of uncertainty the Sung dynasty suc­ ceeded the last of the Five Dynasties and, eighteen years later, conquered all the other states. It was this that the Confucian historians seized upon to help explain what could not be reconciled within the orthodox framework. The Sung emperors inherited the empire, and that could only be so because the emperors of the Five Dynasties had each in-

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herited the empire before them. Therefore, those Five Dynasties were obviously bearers of the M andate of Heaven and all the standards of the Confucian state could fairly be applied to them.64 By these stand­ ards, it was clear that the emperors were inferior, the regimes conse­ quently short-lived, the ministers un-Confucian, and, most of all, men like Feng Tao appallingly disloyal. I think it is necessary to see the period as it was and to see how it differs from the Confucian distortion so essential to justify the Sung empire. If we return to the beginning of the struggle to replace the T ang, that is, to the years after 884, we see the struggle developing until Chu Wen, who held the whole stretch of the Yellow and the W ei rivers, was pitted against the northern alliance of the Sha-t’o Turks and the Ho-pei armies. As neither side could win decisively, Chu W en was rushed into killing the last T ang emperor and founding his dynasty of the Liang. The struggle continued for sixteen years into the next gener­ ation. Then in 923 the other side won and, under the dynastic names of (later) T ang, Chin, Han, Chou, and Sung, the Sha-t’o and Ho-pei alliance controlled North China. And, conforming to the traditions of the Turks and the unstable pattern of gubernatorial succession in the Ho-pei provinces, twelve emperors succeeded one another between 926 and 960. All twelve were from the original alliance, whose continu­ ity was remarkable and which through the years had become identified as one progression ( hsi-t’u n g), even one organization. Of the twelve, three were sons, two were adopted sons, one was a nephew, and one a son-in-law of emperors.65 Of the remaining five, the first Emperor Chuang-tsung was the son of the original leader of the alliance and die other four were either previous commanders in chief or chiefs of staff who usurped power in the best traditions of the Ho-pei provinces.66 Since all the successions had taken place within the same allied grouping, it is obvious that the concept of loyalty in the eyes of Feng Tao and his contemporaries was different from that of the Sung his­ torians a hundred years later. Feng Tao served ten of these emperors, the first Emperor Chuang-tsung, two sons, two adopted sons, one nephew, and one son-in-law of emperors in addition to three others. Of the three others, Ming-tsung in 926 was an able and popular general who had not set out to usurp the throne, Han Kao-tsu in 947 had merely recovered Chin territory from the Khitans, and Chou T ai-tsu in 951 was a victim of court intrigue who became emperor in order to save his own life.67 All three men had been friends and colleagues of Feng Tao and respected him for his sagacity. In fact, had Feng Tao lived another six yearsvhe would have seen the foundation of the Sung by yet another Ho-pei Chinese who was bom into the organization, and no doubt

Sung Tai-tsu (960-76) would also have employed him.*® Thus ten of the eleven emperors whom Feng Tao served were members of the same Sha-t’o and Ho-pei organization. The question of disloyalty did not occur to him, or to his contemporaries, or even to the emperors, who were happy to employ him. The only emperor who came from outside the group was the emperor of the Khitans, whom Feng Tao served for four months in 947 till the Khitan’s death. Yet even in this relationship, there were the links of the Sha-to tradition. The Khitan emperor had been Chin K ao-tsus’“Imperi­ al Father” ( fu huang-ti ) since 938, and Feng Tao had led one of the mis­ sions sent to arrange for this.69 And if the links are traced further back, the Khitan founder, A-pao-chi ( 872-926 ), and the founder of the Sha-to and Ho-pei alliance, Li K’o-yung (856-908), were sworn brothers in 905.70 Anyway, the wars of 944-46, which ended in Khitan victory, had arisen partly because Chin Shao-ti was only willing to be a “grandson” (sun) but not a “minister” or “subject” (cKen) of the Khitan ruler.71 The Khitans themselves regarded the war as partly a war to chastise a disrespectful member of the family. Since to Feng Tao the Khitan emperor did have a claim to North China, it would not have been disloyal to serve him.72 It is easy to see how such a series of imperial successions in North China baffled Confucian historians and how the problem of Feng Tao’s loyalty defied classification. But, once it was decided to treat the selfprofessed dynasties in the orthodox way, Feng Tao naturally came to be judged by the orthodox definition of loyalty to emperor or at least loy­ alty to dynasty. By this definition, he was undoubtedly disloyal. But when the Confucian distortion is removed and Feng Tao and his con­ temporaries are seen as the officials of a rather unstable organization that had seized control of a part of China, then the concept of loyalty in a Confucian state would not apply. Such a concept should have been limited to those Tang officials who had abetted Chu Wen in the down­ fall of the Tang or to those Liang officials who were glad to serve Chuang-tsung after 923. These were clear examples of disloyalty by any definition, and Ou-yang Hsiu’s collection of “six T ang ministers” who turned from the Tang to the Liang certainly represents the most cul­ pable kind of disloyalty of the whole period.73 At worst, Feng Tao could have been regarded as a man who kept himself aloof from the internal intrigues and quarrels of his leaders and who saw no reason to abandon high office at every change in their fortunes. The Sung biographers of Feng Tao applied their Confucian dynastic view to the history of the Five Dynasties. His exceptional career could not be taken lightly. It had to be evaluated and classified, and in the

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context of the new Confucianism of Sung it was obviously unforgivable, even disgusting. Thereafter, this remained the only possible view of Feng Tao. Yet his biographers were not entirely to blame for judging him by eleventh-century standards. After all, Feng Tao claimed to have lived a Confucian life and followed a Confucian career. He was even com­ pared with Confucius, and his “sayings” were prominent in the official records. Not only that; he wrote an account of his own life which showed clearly how pleased he was with his Confucian achievements. This was the crucial point. In every discussion of Feng Tao, there is reference to this unusual piece of writing, his autobiography. In a sense, Feng Tao had invited comparison with the best, and this to men like Ou-yang Hsiu and Ssu-ma Kuang was intolerable conceit. Autobiography has tended to be self-justification and Chinese auto­ biographies are no exceptions. But most of the examples we still have from before the Sung were w ritten in order to explain a lack of interest in high office. Beginning w ith the poet Yang Hsiung’s (53 b .c . - a .d . 18) Chieh-ch’ao and the historian Pan Ku’s ( a .d . 32-92) Pin-hsi chu-jen, autobiographical writing gradually evolved toward essays justifying the life of a recluse, such as those w ritten by Huang-fu Mi ( 215-82, Hsiianshou lun), T ao Ch’ien (365-427, Wu-liu hsien-sheng chuan), and Liu Chiin (462-521, Tzu-hsü).1* A slightly different tradition was that of the Han humorist Tung-fang So (b. 160 b .c . ), who wrote his Ta-k’o nan to show his political views.75 Somewhat similar to this tradition was the Tzu-hsü of Yüan Chen (779-831 ), the T ang poet, but Yiian Chen’s was much more of an autobiography with short comments on his own career.7® Another example of autobiographical writing, Wang Ch’ung’s ( a .d . 27-97) account of his philosophical development, stood alone until the Sung dynasty.77 Except for Yiian C hens Tzu-hsü, there was nothing in Chinese tradition to justify a proud account of one’s official career. But Yiian Chen had been content merely to mention some of the problems he had dealt with. There was certainly no precedent for Feng Tao’s detailed list of all the emperors he had served, all his ranks, offices, and titles, and all the honors conferred upon his ancestors as well as all the ranks and offices held by his sons. The tradition in auto­ biography had clearly been to disparage high office, but Feng Tao did not follow this tendency toward w hat m ight be described as inverted snobbery. Instead, he preferred to record his connection with an emi­ nent family and give a full account of how he had done his Confucian duty to his ancestors (the posthumous honors), to his family (his chil­ dren’s achievem ents), and to his sovereign (his own titles as evidence of his emperors’ gratitude). As he said.

I have been a son, a brother, a minister of the emperor, a teacher, a husband, and a father, and I have sons, nephews, and grandchildren. What I have given to my times has been inadequate. Where I have been inadequate is that I have not helped my emperor to unify the empire and bring order to the country. I am truly ashamed to have held all my various offices and ranks without success and wonder how I can repay the gifts of heaven and earth.78

He had clearly broken with tradition, and this Ou-yang Hsiu and Ssu-ma Kuang must have noted with disapproval. Even his modesty in the passage quoted above could not have absolved him from the terrible heresy of pride in high office. And to have done it with reference to Confucian principles was in very bad taste indeed. Furthermore, Feng Tao had spoken of his loyalty to the state and of the “three no-decep­ tions” and, even worse, attributed to heaven’s protection his success in outliving all his emperors (as quoted above). He mentioned the possi­ bility of official burial, of eulogistic inscriptions, of ritual sacrifice and posthumous titles for himself. Although he had asked all this to be denied to him, it was vulgar conceit to have even thought about these subjects. Finally, he was contented and self-satisfied. W ith obvious complacence he wrote, “I sometimes open a book and sometimes drink a cup of wine. Is there not food to be tasted, music to be heard, and colors to wear till I grow old and contented in these times? When one is happy with oneself when old, what happiness can compare with that?”79 Feng Tao could not have known that a higher Confucianism was to develop a century after his death. He could not have known that he was living in an age of transition and that important changes in social, po­ litical, and philosophical values were about to take place. He asked to be considered as a Confucian, not realizing that the Confucianism of his time would prove ineffectual and shallow and be replaced by a more severe and vigorous creed. He saw himself as loyal and true and did not anticipate the judgment of a later orthodoxy. His contribution to his times was too slight to matter in later ages. Men of the eleventh century, bent on revitalizing the Confucian tradition, showed little tol­ erance for the rather flaccid Confucianism of Feng Tao. Generally overlooked was his contribution as a “Confucian” in his own time who had helped keep alive in adversity the rudiments of the tradition, giving those who followed a foundation on which to build the vigorous new Confucian system.

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yieîlmut "Wilhelm FROM MYTH TO MYTH: THE CASE OF YÜEH FEES BIOGRAPHY

There is no dearth in Chinese history of personalities whose lives have become the object of mythologization. Emperors and com­ moners, poets and bandits, officials and warriors—all have had their words and deeds transfigured. Few, however, have been so intensively mythologized as the heroic warrior, patriot, and tragically frustrated savior of his country, Yiieh Fei (1103-41), who became the first war­ rior to have his mythologized life exhaustively and exclusively treated in a great Chinese novel.1 Even in the generation after his death the number of temples dedicated to him seems to have been considerable. Only one other warrior shares with Yiieh Fei the honor of a place in the official pantheon.2 Taken together, the “historical” facts of Yiieh’s life quickly yield the germination point of this process. To be sure, for reasons to be discussed later, biographical data on Yiieh Fei are scanty and unusually unreli­ able. But even those facts definitely or at least very probably historical produce a picture of Yiieh Fei’s life rich in the substance of myth. His life story resembles strangely the myths of St. George, Siegfried, or other sun-heroes in a Chinese variation: the forceful youth of almost unknown family background, as proud as he is naïve, who overnight gains entrance into his chosen vocation; the loyal attachm ent to those who guide him in his activities; his somewhat ostentatious display of all the shining virtues the tradition demands; his always successful battles against the enemy which is devastating his country; ,his sudden retreat at the peak of his success; and his end at the hands of a villain of blackest hue, Ch m Kuei. W e even find the evil woman who urges the villain on to commit the fatal deed. These and other elements of the Yiieh Fei biography were highly conducive to the creation of the Yiieh Fei image of later popular and official lore, but I shall resist the tem ptation Jo analyze more closely this superb example of the myth­ making process. To keep these elements in mind might, however, con-

tribute to an understanding of Yiieh Fei’s attitudes, words, and deeds. As will be shown, he constantly and consciously worked toward pro­ ducing an image of himself as a hero of mythological proportions, rigidly patterning himself after the myths of the past. This “impersonation” of a myth was to dictate the events of his life and, finally, his fate. We are singularly unfortunate with regard to the sources on Yiieh Fei’s life. The circumstances of his death precluded the tomb inscrip­ tion or other obituary matter on which biographies in the Sung shih to a large extent depend. Instead, his official biography is based on a re­ written version of a biography by his grandson Yiieh K’o, written sixty years after Yiieh Fei’s death.8 This biography was incorporated by Yiieh K’o into a collection compiled with the avowed purposes of re­ establishing the prestige and stature of his grandfather.4 In addition to the natural bias of filial piety, and the promotion of family interests which it shares with the biographies based on obituaries, it is open to doubt on account of this propagandists purpose. Furthermore, in sixty years, knowledge about the facts of Yiieh Fei’s life had already become blurred. This is reflected in a number of verifiable errors.5 How many other, unverified errors it contains will probably remain forever un­ known.6 We are not much better off with regard to the official documentation of Yiieh Fei’s public activities. The contemporary official records, of course, do not survive. They were used, however, at the time of the compilation of some sections of the Sung shih pertinent to Yiieh Fei’s life, particularly the Annals of Emperor Kao. They were also available to Sung historians like Hsiung K’o,7 Liu Cheng,8 and Li Hsin-ch’uan.® From the indirect quotation of the official records concerning Yiieh Fei in these compilations it becomes abundantly clear—and this seems to be the present consensus—that these records were doctored during the decade and a half Ch’in Kuei remained in power after Yiieh Fei’s death. We have thus to cope not only with the poor quality of the Sung shih in general but also with the fact that Yiieh Fei’s official record has been falsified.10 Parts of these records have survived outside the official archives. Yiieh K’o incorporated in his compilations a number of memorials and reports addressed to the throne by Yiieh Fei as well as various imperial rescripts and decrees addressed to Yiieh Fei. This appears to be the most reliable body of documentary material available, as there is no reason to suspect tampering. It is, however, highly improbable that this collection of documents is complete. The tenor of the imperial re­ scripts is almost uniformly appreciative of Yiieh Fei’s character and his actions, with next to nothing in the way of criticism or reprimand.11

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It is inconceivable that an emperor who constantly expressed this degree of indebtedness and even tender personal care would have condoned the course of action that led to Yüeh Fei’s death. Either Yüeh Fei him­ self failed to keep those documents critical of him and his actions or Yüeh K’o’s compilation was highly selective. Yüeh Fei’s own writings have come down to us in very sad con­ dition.12 Except for memorials and official reports ( seven out of eight chiian), there are only a few stray items. There is evidence that Ch’in Kuei had Yüeh Fei’s home raided and his writings destroyed.13 Equally scanty are references to Yüeh Fei in the writings of his contemporaries and independent biographical sources.14 It is from this brittle material, then, that we have to build our image of Yüeh Fei, the man. I do not propose to present here an integrated biography of Yüeh.15 I would like, rather, to discuss Yüeh Fei as a historic figure seen in the context of his time and, second, to see how the historic character is related to the heroic tradition of which he was self-consciously a part.16 Yüeh Fei’s family background is not well explored. It is not only recent Communist descriptions which stress that he came from a farm­ ing family. His father, Yüeh Ho, appears to have been a man of modest affluence, in a position at least to earmark some of his income for wel­ fare projects. He is specifically reported to have drawn income from a field of rushes, although this was swept away, and his financial status in consequence seriously curtailed, by a flood that occurred when Yüeh Fei was still a baby. Yüeh Fei’s miraculous escape from this flood to­ gether with his mother (née Yao) in a big w ater jar was an event that contributed to the myth of his life. A similarly prophetic incident was the flight of a large bird over the house at the time of his birth. This was responsible for his name Fei as well as his tzu Feng-chü, without doubt a reference to the roc, which had been made famous by Chuangtzu and remained the symbol of a superior and imaginative personality. That Yüeh Ho chose this tzu for his son indicates the sophisticated level of his education, especially for a man of his rural surroundings. He is reported to have tutored his son personally, and some of the Confucian virtues Yüeh Fei exhibited with such consistent devotion must have been instilled in him by his father. There is no evidence, however, that Yüeh Ho ever endeavored to pursue an examination career. W ithout question, the extent of Yüeh Fei’s own learning and his general love of scholarship were very considerable. In his youth he was particularly attracted by the Tso-chuan and the military classics of Chou. A sustained effort was, however, necessary to achieve the inten­ sity of historical knowledge and the subtlety of historical interpretation that Yüeh Fei displayed in his surviving writings. Moreover, he wrote

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a smooth, almost elegant style and his calligraphy has become a model for later artists in this field.17 But, like his father, he never pursued an examination career. Yüeh Fei seems to have been a serious-minded and taciturn child, at the same time endowed with unusual physical strength. In addition to his literary studies he took up archery, swordsmanship, and lanceplay, apparently under the tutelage of a certain Chou Tung. When Chou Tung died, Yüeh Fei paid him unusual posthumous honors. This overdramatized behavior testifies to an important trait in Yüeh Fei’s character: a penchant for giving symbolic expression to genuinely felt emotions. There are too many incidents in Yüeh Fei’s biography to leave any doubt that his reverence for his tutors and guides was genuine, representing more than mere compliance with a Confucian imperative. This is shown by his relationship to Chang So, who had launched him on his military career.18 When about a decade later Yüeh Fei received by imperial grace the privilege of promoting his own son, he substituted Chang So’s son. The closeness of Yüeh Fei’s relationship in later life to his colleagues and more particularly to his subordinates is universally attested to. His paternal care for them and his liberal rewards have become almost proverbial. But always dramatic expression was given to a genuinely felt and also consciously cultivated human emotion. His somewhat ostentatious sacrifice at the tomb of Chou T ung sets the pattern for this kind of attitude: the reticent youth makes a considered display of himself, and the pattern of the hero he knows he is and wants to be is established in the public eye. The sacrifice at the tomb of Chou T ung was the occasion for one of those anticipatory remarks that are part and parcel of almost every biography, the remark that presages the future fate of the hero. His father took him to task for his action, saying: “When you are employed to cope with the affairs of the time, will you then not have to sacrifice yourself for the empire and die for your duty?” The only logical mean­ ing of this remark is that once Yüeh Fei had aimed for a high public position, he would have to live up to the image he had created of him­ self, even to the point of sacrificing his life. Yüeh Fei did live up to this image and eventually paid the ultimate price. The remark also made it possible for posterity to interpret his death as a sacrifice to the empire and to his duty and to brand the one who had brought about this death as an enemy of the empire and a villain. Myth in the making! To play the role he had assumed for himself, however, Yüeh Fei had to find an appropriate route to prominence. His family was apparently not well enough established or affluent enough to permit his rise “the easy way” through inheritance or sponsorship. One incident in his life

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m ight indicate that for a time he strove to establish relations w ith influ­ ential persons who m ight sponsor his entry into officialdom. H e became a tenant-retainer of the Han family, a gentry-official family of high standing in the neighboring district of An-yang. His functions there included the exercise of strong-arm methods to prevent the depreda­ tions of m arauding bands on the Han property.19 But he soon aban­ doned this approach. This left only two ways open to him, development of his literary skills and development of his m artial skills. H e chose the second. This fateful choice seems strange. There is no doubt that Yüeh Fei would have qualified for a literary career. The literary career undoubtedly offered much more security and, particularly at the time when Yüeh Fei’s decision was taken, much higher prestige. This was the year 1122, the last period of Hui-tsung’s reign. The power of the Chin was already in the ascendant; it was the year in which they conquered the Southern capital of the Liao, Peking. Their future onslaught against the Sung was, however, by no means anticipated. Thus there was not yet an urgent need to strengthen the military in order to save the country. Furtherm ore, m ilitary prestige at the end of Northern Sung was particularly low, considerably lower than could be explained by the traditional ideological precedence of the civilian over (he military. All through Northern Sung times, the performance of the military had been mediocre. There had not been any glorious campaigns or any feats of personal m ilitary prowess like those for which earlier dynasties had been justly famous. This was at least in part due to conscious govern­ m ent policy. The founder of Sung, even though, or possibly because, he had come to power through the military, was particularly aware of the double-edgedness of his own profession; and ever since then it had remained an unshaken principle of the government to keep the military in check rather than to make positive use of it. To be sure, in the later part of Northern Sung the m ilitary had proliferated again, but even then the m ilitary career was despised. W hy should an ambitious youth planning his career have thrown in his lot w ith a profession that counted for so little? One reason m ight be that government civil service had not been a tradition in the Yüeh family; w hat was a compelling reason for some youngsters to go through the examination drudgery—to maintain and raise the family position by emulating or surpassing their elders—was of no account for Yüeh Fei. It m ight also be noted that the high degree of centralization of civilian government in Northern Sung times left very little beyond routine activities for even the high official, with the consequence that excess energy found an outlet in clique struggles, which were ideologically and personally repulsive and reduced indi-

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vidual security to a very low level. The same degree of control over the military had not yet been achieved. Although the government had succeeded in keeping the military conspicuously inactive, there re­ mained, within the military establishment, appreciably greater oppor­ tunity for the exercise of personal initiative. Finally, we must remember that Yüeh Fei was not yet twenty when he made this decision. A youth of his age and temperament might well have been acting under the inspiration of great heroes of the past, but Yiieh Fei’s decision is likely to have stemmed also from a conviction that this was in accord with his appointed destiny. He felt within himself the potential of the submerged dragon. Having made his decision, Yüeh Fei now had to establish a reputa­ tion for military skills and define a personal goal. The occasion offered itself in 1122, when Liu Chia, staff officer of T ung Kuan, recruited dare­ devils (kan chan shih).20 Yüeh Fei enlisted and participated in the attempt by the Sung army to capture Peking from the Liao. History records the tumultuous retreat of T ung Kuan’s army, Peking was left to the Chin, but Yüeh Fei had glimpsed with his own eyes the awesome walls of this great and long-lost northern metropolis, in his myth-ori­ ented terminology the City of the Yellow Dragon, which from that time on figured so largely in his strategic reasoning. When T’ung Kuan returned to Kaifeng, Yüeh stayed with Liu Chia, then stationed at Chen-ting. Liu employed him mainly in the suppres­ sion of “local bandits.” Colorful descriptions exist of his first military encounters. He was portrayed not only as a powerful wielder of the sword and bow, endowed with an almost superhuman courage, but also —his study of the military classics had not been in vain—as a sharp strategist and clever tactician who knew how to use tricks and ruses. This first experience of organized military life lasted less than a year. Toward the end of that year his father died, and Yüeh Fei, true to die imperatives of an established behavior pattern, immediately returned home. This unquestioning self-denial was genuine but at the same time exemplary. Although it meant reverting to obscurity for four long years, the young dragon had made his appearance in the field. By the time Yüeh Fei returned to military life, in response to a re­ cruitment drive late in 1126, the political situation had changed consid­ erably: the Northern Sung dynasty was at an end. In the ensuing turmoil circumstances had arisen whose configuration suggested a po­ tential “restoration” of the dynasty.21 To bring this potential to fruition required among other things: an image of the empire which was per­ suasive enough to command not just routine loyalty but personal com­ mitment to the cause of restoration; a head of government who would in his person symbolize the common cause and be ingenious enough to

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marshal and coordinate the necessary forces; a number of imaginative restoration leaders who would have the drive as well as the freedom of action to gather up, organize, and lead the shattered parts of the empire; and finally an entirely new pre-eminence of the military. Yiieh Fei saw his opportunity. On rejoining the m ilitary Yiieh had at first enjoyed the sponsorship of Chang So. Following Chang’s dismissal, Yiieh joined an at best semi­ independent commander, W ang Yen. Incompatibility of personal ambi­ tions led Yiieh to leave W ang, and for a time Yiieh became the entirely independent commander of an independent army unit, officially speak­ ing a “bandit” or at best a petty warlord. Then he rejoined the offi­ cial army under the command of Tsung Tse,22whom he highly respected, and after Tsung’s death he served under his successor, Tu Ch’ung,23 who eventually surrendered to the Chin. In this period Yiieh fought his col­ leagues rather than the common enemy, gradually assembling an army of great potential striking power and immaculate prestige, his own army, the Yiieh-chia-chiin. Episodes abound that show how Yiieh forged this tool for action and m aintained its sharp edge ever after. Very strict discipline prevailed in his army, and heavy punishm ent was m eted out even for inadvertent mistakes. Recognition, rewards, and grants of responsibility and initia­ tive came to those who lived up to Yiieh’s expectations. And as Yiieh’s m ilitary genius guaranteed that no m ilitary action undertaken ever ended in defeat, he succeeded in creating unique cohesion and spirit in his army. The prestige of his army was also increased by its irreproachable behavior. Again episodes abound to illustrate this point. Its repute, and that of its commander, surpassed all others. Wise rehabilitation measures, by which reconquered territory was restored to productivity and the roaming population resettled in a new kind of security, con­ tributed to this effect. His army was m ade to carry out these rehabili­ tation measures in addition to performing its m artial functions. His grandson Yiieh K’o summarized his technique for welding an army together as follows: Among the methods by which Yiieh Fei managed his army, there were six great ones. The first was: careful selection. He stressed quality and did not stress quantity. From those selected, one counted as much as a hundred. Once the emperor had transferred to his army the troops of Han Ching and Wu Hsi; not all of them were used to battle, and many of them were old and weak. After he had selected those who could be used, he had not got even a thousand men; the rest were all dismissed and sent home. After a few months of Gaining he had in consequence an army unit of high quality. The second was: careful training. When the troops were stationed at

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garrison quarters, ho had them instructed in all the pertinent arts. This in­ struction became increasingly strict until they would not enter for a visit when they passed their own gate, and until they would regard days of leave like days of action. For instance, they had to crawl through moats and jump over walls, and all that in full armor. When they had completed their train­ ing, people would regard them as saints. The third was: justice in rewards and punishments. He treated all his people alike. A private named Kuo Chin from the unit of Chang Hsien had earned merits at Mo-yeh-kuan.24 Yüeh unhooked his golden belt and gave it to him as a reward together with silverware for his personal use, and in addition he promoted him. His son Yüeh Yün once was practicing jumping a moat in heavy armor when his horse stumbled and fell. Yüeh Fei, angry on account of his lack of training, said: "Would you also act this way when facing the great enemy?” And then he ordered him to be decapitated. All his generals knelt before him and begged that his son be spared. Thereupon he had him bastinadoed a hundred times and let him go. Other examples are Fu Ch mg, who was executed because he had boasted of his merits; Hsin T’ai, who was dismissed because he had not followed orders; and Jen Shih-an, who was bastinadoed because he had followed an order too slowly. All fail­ ures, irrespective of their seriousness, were heavily punished. When Chang Chün25 once asked him about the art of using soldiers, he replied: "Humane­ ness, reliability, wisdom, courage, and strictness [jen, hsin, chih, yung, yen]; of these five not one may be missing.” And when Chang asked about strict­ ness, he replied: “Those who have merits are heavily rewarded; those who have no merits are stiffly punished.” The fourth was: clear orders. He gave his soldiers clear delineations and his commissions were always clear and simple, so that they could be easily followed. Whoever went against them was invariably punished. The fifth was: strict discipline. Even when his army was on the march, there was never the slightest misdemeanor such as the trampling of the people’s fields, damaging of agricultural labor, or inadequate payment for purchases. This he would never condone. A soldier once had taken a hempen rope from a man in order to tie his hay. He questioned him as to where he had got it and had him immediately decapitated. The sixth was: community of pleasure and toil. He treated his men with grace [en]. He always ate the same things as the lowest of his soldiers. When there was wine or meat he shared it equally with all his subordinates. When there was not enough wine to go around, he had it diluted with water until everybody got a mouthful. When the army was on the march, he camped in the open together with his officers and soldiers; even when quar­ ters had been prepared for him, he would not enter them alone.

To be sure, these rules and episodes have been compiled by a pious grandson. There is no reason, however, to doubt their authenticity. They all fit into the character of a man who genuinely endeavored to live up to his ideal of a warrior-hero. The prestige of Yüeh Fei’s army and the stature of his personality soon attracted a large number of civilian hangers-on. In this respect, Yüeh Fei’s army was not unique; the great armies of Liu Kuang-shih,2*

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Han Shih-chung,27 and others also welcomed and employed civilian degree-holders, who were used for administrative tasks or just kept around to lend color to the camp and wit to the feasts. They were called “serving personnel” ( hsiao-yung shih-ch’en). Their exact func­ tions have to my knowledge not yet been properly explored, but they seem to have been the forerunners of the mu-yu of later times.28 Schol­ ars were welcome at Yüeh Fei s camp at all periods of his career. Yiieh Fei had genuine respect for scholarship, and he also used the scholars to enliven the spirit of his soldiery by having them recount the great deeds of the heroic warriors of the past. These deeds were no doubt told in the legendarized versions already current in Yiieh Fei’s time. Thus Yiieh kept before his soldiers the models on which his own life was patterned. H e did not even hide his desire to go down in history as the peer of these past heroes and may have hoped that among the scholars were some who would help to establish his future position as a mythological hero. He specifically mentioned that he wanted to be likened to the great men of the period of the Three Kingdoms, Kuan Yii in particular. Later official mythology has actually put him on a par with his great model.29 Yiieh F eis respect for scholars is referred to repeatedly and it is also recorded that he discussed current affairs with them and listened to their advice. It was in one of these conversations that Yiieh Fei, who was always quick to coin a winged phrase, was asked when the empire would have peace again and replied: "When the civilian officials do not love money, and when the military officials are not afraid to die, the world will get peace all by itself.”80 How could he help growing into a m yth when he could answer the burning human question of his time with such a highly quotable phrase? H e also said, however, that his great care always to exhibit “virtuous” conduct was motivated by the fear that the Confucianists in his camp m ight otherwise record personal behavior for which later generations would condemn him. Thus he built up an image of his personality not only for his time but for pos­ terity. Parenthetically, his relationship to women m ight be mentioned here, as it brings out the contours of his character. His extreme filial piety toward his m other is of course widely praised. However, when his position in the north became untenable and he had to retreat south­ w ard with his army, he left her behind in the care of his wife. Circum­ stances dictated this rather unfilial behavior, unfilial in particular be­ cause he must have known that his wife was not one to endure adversity. Actually h is wife left him ( and his m other) and remarried. His mother subsequently experienced some real hardships. Eventually rescuing his

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mother, he settled her adequately but not luxuriously in the Lushan Mountains near Kiukiang. At her death in 1136, Yüeh Fei immediately left camp for the prescribed mourning, even though the military situa­ tion made his personal conduct of affairs imperative. A number of im­ perial messages to recall him to active duty went unheeded; and only repeated pressure from his officers “to substitute loyalty for piety” brought him back to the front. His relationship to his second wife was more intimate. He even dis­ cussed affairs with her. But she always had to take second place to his mother, whose care, under pain of severe reprimands, was her responsi­ bility. He did not tolerate her interference with his plans, even if this concerned her own safety and that of his mother. He did not permit his sons to have concubines. Once a colleague, who had been entertained at his camp and apparently found his hospi­ tality somewhat dull because of the absence of girls, sent him a girl as a present. Before he had set eyes on her he asked her through a screen whether she would be willing to share the hardships of camp life. When she giggled in reply, he took this as a sign that she was frivolous and sent her back. Had she possessed the presence of mind to give him a heroic reply, he would have kept her. One is reminded of the role the girl plays in the life of the hero in Western films.81 He did drink rather heavily during his earlier career, apparently be­ lieving this fitted the image of a martial hero. Only the emperor’s per­ sonal intervention, after Yiieh had almost killed a colleague in drunken anger, exacted from him a promise not to touch wine again until the Chin had been defeated. Yiieh Fei’s conception of the empire was far from petty. W hat he wanted restored was not only the original frontier of Northern Sung, but all Chinese lands north of it, including Peking and Tatung, and beyond that the territory up to the passes. Early in his career, when he was still serving under Chang So, he argued this conception in a color­ ful and symbol-ridden exposition, which reveals the strength of his emo­ tional commitment to his goal as well as the soundness of his strategic reasoning. The conception remained his own, however, and not the court’s. When he discussed restoration in his memorials to the emperor, the great Han model loomed large in his argument. The element he took from this model was the inspired leadership of the Kuang-wu emperor. But the role of the general Kuo Tzu-i, who had restored the tottering Tang empire, also figures conspicuously in his reasoning. The task of restoration had been carried out by a great military leader and Yiieh Fei was seeking the analogous role.

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But again it has to be stressed that Yiieh Fei’s commitment to this empire—his patriotism —was as much an emotional commitment as a re­ flection of conscious or even studied attitudes. This is revealed in the few remaining fragments of his nonofficial prose, a handful of poems and three songs. No one who was not genuinely committed to the point of obsession would have been able to produce as powerful a patriotic song as his Man-chiang-hung. It needed a Yiieh Fei to garb this emo­ tion with words that have remained symbols of patriotism ever since:82 My hair bristles in my helmet I lean against the railing, the pattering rain has ceased. I raise my eyes, and toward the sky I utter a long-drawn shout. My breast is filled with violence. At the age of thirty fame and merits are but earth and dust. Eight thousand miles of land are like the moon covered with clouds. Do not tarry! The hair of youth grows white. Oh, vain sorrows. The shame of the year Ching-k’ang [1126] not yet wiped away, When will the hate of the subject come to an end? Oh, let us drive endless chariots through the Ho-lan Pass. My fierce ambition is to feed upon the flesh of the Huns, And, laughing, I thirst for the blood of the Barbarians. Oh, let everything begin afresh. Let all the rivers and mountains be recovered. Before we pay our respect once more to the Emperor.

The last two verses of this song speak his dream of recovering the north, the old mountains and rivers, and his dream of entering the palace gate for his final and trium phant audience. His conception of and com­ mitment to the empire included its symbolic actual head, the emperor. The special flavor of Yiieh Fei’s loyalty and subservience reveals his character structure more clearly than anything else. Again there is no doubt that Yiieh Fei felt genuinely loyal to the emperor and that he genuinely felt himself to be a servant in the cause of which the emperor was the highest exponent. But again his image of the emperor was idealized. W hat he revered was the model emperor, composite image of all the model emperors of the past, the saint of immaculate virtues— an image that had been built up by successive generations of Chinese political philosophers. This emperor image coincided with the actual Em peror Kao only accidentally. In the case of Yiieh Fei this incongru­ ity meant, however, more than the implicit tension between the ideal and its actual representative. He himself strove to be a model and ex­ emplar, and his loyalty was attached to the emperor only in so far as he was, in the eyes of Yiieh Fei, a model and exemplar. To those mani-

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festations of the emperor’s character and the emperor’s will that could not be thus designated he owed nothing. Loyal to his own ideals and goals, and confident of the power of his army, Yiieh in his responses to imperial commands frequently came close to insubordination. It is little wonder that an autocratic emperor like Kao-tsung had little use for Yiieh Fei’s kind of loyalty. There are accounts of Yiieh Fei’s efforts to persuade the emperor to act more in accord with the ideal. Yiieh had been received in audience by the future Emperor Kao-tsung, at that time still the Prince of K’ang, in 1127, and apparently made a brilliant impression. But immediately after Kao-tsung had ascended the throne, Yiieh Fei, then barely in his mid-twenties, submitted with touching naïveté—or was it naïveté?—a memorial urging the emperor to provide the inspired leadership Yiieh Fei felt was needed. Yiieh could hardly have been surprised that his newly gained first official title was taken away from him for this pre­ sumption. On another occasion Yiieh Fei attem pted to influence an im­ perial decision regarding the heir apparent. Again he was rebuffed with the rebuke that a military official should not interfere in civilian affairs.88 This does not mean that Yiieh did not show satisfaction and pride whenever imperial grace came his way. When he was made Regional Commandant ( chieh-tu-shih) in 1134, that is, in his early thirties, he had even the hybris to liken himself to the founder of the dynasty, the only person coming readily to his mind who at an equally early age had achieved such a high position. He responded to imperial grace always with the utmost formality. Going beyond the dictates of propriety, he declined the honor of the chieh-tu-shih four times; his appointment to the position of a Lesser Protector ( shao-pao ) he even declined five times. Such excesses of modesty were interpreted as arrogance. In the foregoing discussion the information on Yiieh Fei’s character has been telescoped. Incidents and reactions from different parts of his life have been used to illustrate a certain trait or a certain attitude. It is not by chance that our sources induce this kind of treatment. They already present a highly typified Yiieh Fei, a man who from cradle to grave was consistent and uniform. A closer scrutiny of the verifiable and datable material reveals, however, that there was an unusual con­ sistency in his character structure. There is very little evidence of a developing and maturing process. He appears to have entered the stage with a set of ready-made attitudes to which he stuck unflinchingly until his final hours. It is the force of the Chinese tradition, more specifically the Confucian tradition—generalized to be sure and congealed into a myth—that imposed this consistency on him and that makes him look

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like a bronze monument rather than a living human being, more immov­ able than a mountain, as the Chin said of him. It was natural for Chu Hsi to praise Yüeh Fei as the unsurpassed hero of his time. W hat did change, however, were the circumstances of his life, which led him with clocklike precision to penultim ate trium ph and ultim ate disaster. The main stations along this fatal road are quickly recounted. When, after the capitulation of Tu Ch’ing in 1129, the position of Yiieh’s army in the north became untenable, he withdrew, as did the other army leaders, to the south of the Yangtze. He stationed his army at I-hsing, immediately west of the T ai-hu lake. This was not an assigned garri­ son but a place of his own choice, and again for a time he and his army led an almost entirely independent existence. In the general military debacle, his army was, however, too strong a force for the court to neg­ lect. Thus he was gradually raised in rank and responded to imperial calls for assistance. Several skirmishes with Chin troops are recorded after they had crossed the Yangtze, and in 1130 Yiieh was mainly re­ sponsible for raising the siege of Chien-k’ang ( Nangking ). He was then stationed at Tai-chou (north of the Yangtze, east of Yangchow) to guard the frontier, then shifted to Hung-chou (west of Lake Poyang), Chiang-chou (present-day Kiukiang), and eventually in 1132 to O-chou (present-day W uchang). During this period he was mainly active in suppressing “bandits.” The banditry he had to cope with was of two entirely different types. The first was represented by m ilitary leaders who, like Yiieh himself, had succeeded in extricating themselves and their armies from the mili­ tary debacle in the north and had attem pted to carve out for themselves independent spheres of activity south of the river. Formally, their position diflFered very little from Yiieh’s during his I-hsing period. Un­ like Yiieh, however, they had failed to recognize and acknowledge the gradual reassertion of imperial power and organized government. The second type of banditry was local uprisings, unconnected with the development in the north. One of these was the revolt led by Li Tun-jen in Kiangsi, in which gentry influence seems to have been strong. The most interesting among these movements is the one founded by Chung Hsiang and later led by Yang Yao (original name T a i). This rebellion seems to have had a secret-society type of ideology with cer­ tain egalitarian slogans. W hat Chung vowed to eradicate by his move­ m ent were: officials, scholars, monks, shamanistic medicine men, and sorcerers. The power of his organization must have been quite formid­ able, as he could boast of a navy that included paddle-wheel ships “swift liké birds.”34 Contemporaries pointed out that this movement

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was an expression of genuine popular feelings, quite different in nature from the roaming army bandits, and that it should be utilized rather than suppressed. As it stood in the way of his cause, Yüeh Fei sup­ pressed it as swiftly and as skillfully as he had suppressed the others. It is interesting to note that later in his career Yüeh Fei did not hesi­ tate to recognize, and cooperate with, local independent movements. His successes during his northern campaigns are at least in part ex­ plained by the fact that he could rely on these “rebellions.” They paved the way for his army and acted as his intelligence. Beginning in 1134, Yüeh Fei’s army was active in a number of major campaigns against “the great enemy,” the Chin and the puppet state of Ch’i, which the Chin had established as a buffer between themselves and the Sung. These campaigns were conceived within the framework of an empire-wide strategic plan and had to be coordinated with the movements of other major bodies of troops. Several of these campaigns were designed to secure the Huai-hsi region, others led deep into cen­ tral and western North China. In 1134 his army went up to Kuo-chou and Ch’ang-shui on the one hand and to Ts’ai-chou on the other; and in his final and most penetrating campaign of 1140, Yüeh proceeded up to Ying-ch’ang and from there sent pincers to Lo-yang and Ch’en-chou.86 In these campaigns Yüeh scored major successes against the army of Ch’i and finally also against the armies of Chin. It might be true that the Chin felt so hard pressed that they contemplated withdrawing be­ yond the Yellow River, as Yüeh stated in one of his memorials. This last major campaign of Yüeh’s army coincided, however, with the endeavors of the Sung court to come to an understanding with the Chin by surrendering Sung claims to the territory north of the Huai and submitting to a series of other conditions made by the Chin. In the last phase of this campaign, the understanding had actually been concluded. The Sung court had therefore a vital interest in having the advance armies withdrawn in accordance with the conditions of the treaty. This included Yüeh Fei’s army. The emperor is reported (possibly spuri­ ously) to have sent twelve urgent messages within one day ordering Yüeh Fei to withdraw. Yüeh did withdraw, not simply in obedience to an imperial command, but in response to the pressure of his officers, who pointed out that after the other armies had withdrawn, their posi­ tion was strategically untenable. He had to withdraw or lose his army. Yüeh was aware that this was the end of his dreams. He is reported to have said: “The merits of ten years are wiped out in one morning; all the recovered territory is completely lost in one day. The altars of the empire, its rivers and mountains, will hardly be restored again. The

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universal world [ch’ien-k’un shih-chieh] can no longer be recovered.” W hat had happened here? Why is it that the Sung court conceded defeat in the face of a very real chance of victory? After the debacle of 1126, the Sung court had a choice of two poli­ cies—restoration or retrenchment. A restoration policy would, as men­ tioned, have involved a pre-eminence of the military and a great amount of freedom of action for the m ilitary leaders. As long as the Chin or Ch’i were on the attack, the court could not but give the military free play. As soon as the Chin showed signs that they wanted to come to terms, the Sung court chose the second way, that of retrenchment. The military leaders could not be left under the impression that they were indispensable. Strict civilian control was more im portant than lost ter­ ritory. In the late thirties, Ch’in Kuei was responsible for the implementa­ tion of this policy. H e therefore was made the villain in the piece, and was actually the one prim arily responsible for the dirty work involved. It was, however, Em peror Kao-tsung’s policy, and many besides Ch’in Kuei had argued for it. To break the license of the generals was a task of greater importance than to beat the Chin. This is most dramatically expressed in a remark of Emperor Kao-tsung, after one of the attacks of Ch’i had been turned back: “W hat makes me happy is not that Ch’i has been defeated, but that the generals have obeyed orders.” In the end there was no such thing as a Sung restoration. After Yüeh Fei had withdrawn his army, he was used once more in a minor campaign designed to ward off a supposed threat to the region south of the Huai; then he was called to the capital for an audience. On this occasion the policy of retrenchm ent was finally consummated: the three principal generals, Han Shih-chung, Chang Chiin, and Yüeh Fei—Liu Kuang-shih had already been eliminated—were stripped of their commands, given high civilian titles, and appointed to a vaguely defined supervisory committee. Central control over the army was thus established; despotism had trium phed. Deprived of their leaders, the armies were, however, not yet de­ prived of their spirit. This called for more drastic action. The first army to experience this was Han Shih-chung’s. Next was Yüeh Fei’s. One of the chief subcommanders of the Yüeh army, Chang Hsien, and Yüeh’s son were accused of plotting to revolt, and Yüeh Fei himself was said to have been involved in this plot and imprisoned. The court could with impunity publicly execute Chang Hsien and Yüeh Yün on the strength of this trum ped-up charge and have Yüeh Fei himself murdered in prison. It is inconsequential whether or not the death of Yüeh Fei was one

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of the secret conditions laid down by the Chin in treaty negotiations. It is also inconsequential whether Ch’in Kuei had Yüeh Fei murdered on his own initiative or in collusion with the emperor. How the emperor felt about Yiieh Fei’s death is indicated by the fact that Ch’ins position was in no way impaired by this deed. Thus ended Yiieh Fei’s life, but not his role in Chinese history and in the Chinese tradition. By creating a myth of himself, his army, and his cause, he was not able to save himself or his country, but he was able to establish a persuasive symbol for later generations. Being the hero in a dawning new age, he shared, to borrow a phrase from Campbell, “the supreme ordeal, not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great vic­ tories, but in the silences of his personal despair.”86

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David S.'Nivison

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PROTEST AGAINST CONVENTIONS AND CONVENTIONS OF PROTEST

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V Students have often been found to complain about what they are required to learn and how they are held accountable for their lessons. Often their complaints follow a time-wom pattern. But if we look behind the pattern and if the students are serious, we may find that their complaints are both penetrating and important. This has been true even in China, that land of exemplary students, where teachers were respected as nowhere else, and where the emperor himself was the chief examiner. L et me begin by telling some stories. I Shortly before 1060, Ou-yang Hsiu, the early Sung historian, official and man of letters, wrote a short essay, as was often done by Chinese literary men, in the back of a particularly treasured old book from his personal library. The book was an early print, from Ssu-ch uan, of the collected prose of the ninth-century w riter Han Yii. In this essay, Ouyang Hsiu relates that as a young man, being of a poor family, he had had no books; but, finding this book discarded in the house of a friend, he begged for it and read it with fascination, not fully understanding it but nonetheless aware of its worth. In his own time, regular, so-called “modem” prose ( shih wen ) was preferred over the free style or “ancient” prose (ku wen) of Han Yii. “People who were skilled in it,” writes Ouyang Hsiu, “passed the examinations and were the only persons who had any reputation; no one ever talked about the writings of Han Yii.” Just at this time, Ou-yang Hsiu himself had attem pted the examinations unsuccessfully, and this failure had strengthened his dissatisfaction with the literary standards of his age. “I took my copy of Han Yii,” he con­ tinues, “and, rereading it, I sighed and said, ‘Scholars ought to go no farther than this!* And I marveled that people of the present day were so misguided.” Admitting to himself that he must study for the exami­ nations now, to obtain an official position and so be able to support his

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parents, he nevertheless had resolved that after he had succeeded he would turn back to what he really valued. “Later,” Ou-yang Hsiu con­ tinues, “learned men throughout die world all turned their attention gradually to the past, and Han Yus writings eventually became well known. Thirty-odd years have passed since that time, and people now study nothing but Han Yii.”1 Ou-yang Hsiu clearly feels that his values as a young student were right and the officially sanctioned and conventionally approved ones wrong, and that he has been vindicated, inevitably, by time. Further­ more, he is able to assure himself, his pursuit of learning has been moti­ vated only by the purest interest in learning itself—“It was simply that I was devoted to the past,” he says—and not by hope of fame or material advantage. In him, as in other Confucians of his time, conservatism, a love of antiquity, is actually a protest against an ignoble conventionality. But did not Ou-yang Hsiu capitulate? He did study for the examina­ tions, and with conspicuous success. Further, he did this, as he admits, precisely in order to qualify for a salaried official post. The intensity of this conflict, between devotion to higher ideals and the practical neces­ sity of coming to terms with the world, can be seen in the fact that the ultimate Confucian social duty, that of filial piety, had to be invoked to set matters right. Yet die reasonableness of die appeal can hardly be gainsaid. It is indeed die duty of a Confucian to provide for his parents; and so here is another conflict, now between two values, both of which were Con­ fucian: one social, one intellectual; on the one hand family duty, on the other one’s own personal development. It will be instructive to turn, for a slighdy different sort of case, to the early part of the T ang period, when the modem examination system first became important. The historian Liu Chih-chi in the early eighth century wrote, in an autobiographical essay in his Shih T ung (“Gen­ eral Principles of History”), that when he was a child it had been de­ termined that he should specialize in the third of die Confucian Classics, the Shang Shu. But, he writes, “I was always bothered by the difficulty of its language, and . . . although I was frequendy beaten, I got no­ where in my study. But when I happened to hear my father teaching my elder brothers the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Commentary of Tso, I always put aside my books and listened . . . and sighing to myself, I said, Tf only all books were like this, I would no longer be lazy!* ” Liu’s father was surprised at his son’s independence of inclina­ tion, and, surprisingly, relented; Liu was allowed to read the Tso Chuan, and finished his study of it radier quickly. But now, his father would have him specialize in the Tso Chuan alone, going on to read all the

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existing commentaries to th at text. To understand the father s point of view, we need to be aware that an intense study of one or two Classics served a man well in the T ang examinations: the chin-shih and mingching examinations were probably the two most frequently taken even in L ius time; and in offering for the first of these, one had to prepare one Classic, and be prepared further to find the questions dealing w ith com­ mentaries rather than with the text itself. For the latter, one had to pre­ pare somewhat less intensively in two or three Classics.2 But although his father’s wishes in view of this situation may have been sensible, Liu fought free again. H e had wanted to read the Tso, not because it was an examination text but because it was history; he now w anted to read more history—not because it would get him some­ where but because it was interesting, and because he thought he had insights into it worth having. Eventually he turned aside from his in­ terests for a few years to learn to w rite in the poetry and essay forms required in the examinations. He does not indicate that he was bitter about this interruption, b u t he makes it perfectly plain that it was an interruption in his work.8 Both Liu Chih-chi and Ou-yang Hsiu, it is evident, found themselves as young men pursuing conflicting goals. The interest of Ou-yang*s and Liu’s experience and of their attitudes toward it would be slight, if this experience and these attitudes were unique; but we shall see that, far from being unique, they are so common among Chinese writers of the past thousand years as to seem stereotyped. This surely makes the m atter of great interest; for people worry about conflicts, in whatever mode of life they are in; and when people worry, they think. There exist, I suggest, recognizable conventions of protest against the educational mold into which a student felt himself forced. ( 1 ) There is the tendency, perhaps found in any aristocratic social order, to suspect values which are popular and modish of being shallow. Consider the curious feeling often encountered that only a very few people are likely to appreciate a really good painting or book. Surely we see something of this in Ou-yang Hsiu’s conviction as a youth that only he saw matters rightly, and that generally accepted literary standards were “misguided.” There is much more of this, offered with delicious frankness, in Han Yü himself. And whenever the relative merits of “ancient” and “contempo­ rary” prose come up, no m atter how de rigueur it may be for a critic to come down on the side of ku wen, or in favor of a “devotion to the past,” he will usually in doing so manage to think of himself as alone in a Philistine wilderness (for Ou-yang Hsiu’s conviction that only he ap­ preciated H an Yii is surely nonsense). (2) But there is another motif which is sim p ly the uncomplicated rebelliousness of a man of original

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temper when forced to do something distasteful, a motif likely to be found wherever such pressure exists. This was the sort of reaction we found in Liu Chih-chi. Yet, if these two modes of protest are not peculiar to Chinese culture, they certainly arise very naturally in a culture like China’s which has been authoritarian—for Liu’s independence was a reaction against a strict parental authority—and which has always had the persuasion that there are “superior” men, capable of perceiving values to which ordinary men are obtuse. These two styles of self-assertion and protest may be seen in the lives and recollections of other writers, even very recent ones; and often we have the impression that specific literary models are playing a role. To cite two modern examples, the contemporary historian Ku Chieh-kang, like Liu Chih-chi, says he wanted, as a boy, to study the Tso chuan de­ spite the objections of his parents and his teacher (his bête noire was the Book of Odes, not the Shang Shu), and surprised his mentors with his ability when finally allowed to study it.4 Hu Shih writes in his auto­ biography that he happened, while in a neighbor’s house, to discover a dilapidated copy of Shui Hu Chuan, which he was allowed to keep. This was the beginning of Hu’s interest in popular literature, which he championed successfully against the established values of his day.5 I assume that this incident happened; and it may even have had the im­ portance ascribed to i t But the fact that it was worth relating surely owes something to Ou-yang Hsiu. Wang Yang-ming, in the year 1518, wrote a letter of advice to two young men who were preparing for the examinations: Since your home is poverty-stricken and your parents are old, what else can you do but seek emolument and official position? If you seek emolument and official position without studying for the examinations, you will not be able to carry out your duties as men, and will pointlessly find fault with fate. This is hardly right. But if you can firmly fix your aim, in all your pursuits fully express the Tao, and be influenced in thought neither by desire for success nor by fear of failure, then, though you study for the degree, this will be no real hindrance to your learning to become virtuous men.4

Wang, like Ou-yang Hsiu, here justifies the pursuit of worldly ends by appeal to the obligation of filial duty. There is more, of course, to Wang’s attitude than this. He reveals himself highly suspicious of the influence the examinations had on a young man’s mind. It may be possible, he reluctantly concedes, for a man to study for the degree of chü-jen or chin-shih without detriment to his self-development; all too many, how­ ever, through “lack of a fixed aim,” as Wang puts it, “have come to think exclusively of honor, gain and literary style”; and as a result “they can­ not avoid cherishing the desire for small advantages and quick results.”

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A young man m ust always resist this tem ptation the examinations pre­ sent to him to succumb to vulgar values and to let his desires be involved in w hat he is doing. One of the most intriguing cases of the use of these conventions of protest and self-assertion in a man’s appraisal of himself is to be found in Chang Hsiieh-cheng (1738-1801). Chang, like Liu Chih-chi (and Ku Chieh-kang) was interested in the Tso Chuan when he was a boy, to the point of starting a project of rewriting it in standard history form, a project which he carried on in secret and which was sniffed at by his teacher when discovered—for it was in fact a rebellion against his routine study of examination essays and Classics. Changs dislike of this train­ ing was expressed forcefully in early letters, in which we find him com­ plaining th at the examination form of essay (shih wen) is a worthless waste of time; yet he m ust study it in order to pass and get a position, “for my family is poor and my parents are old.”7 One specific youthful episode about which Chang wrote is especially curious. In his seventeenth year, he recalls, he bought a copy of Han Yii; b u t his teachers had forbidden all extracurricular reading—lest Chang acquire literary habits which would injure his chances in the examina­ tion halls—and as a consequence Chang read his new purchase in secret, not fully understanding it, he confesses, yet with such great delight that he could not bear to let the book out of his hands. It is interesting to find here again th at a young man would normally have his access to books and his choice of studies rigidly controlled. But more interesting, it looks very much as if Chang had been reading Ou-yang Hsiu; and indeed he had. Ou-yang Hsiu s reflections were set down in an essay on an old edition of H an Yü, and as in C hangs case, they deal with events in his seventeenth year. Chang’s remarks are made in an essay on an­ other old edition of H an Yü, Chu Hsi’s Han W en K’ao-i. Ou-yang Hsiu had rem arked th at he was w riting of happenings thirty years past. Chang’s own essay concludes, “As I fondle this book, the scenes of thirty years ago come back as though I were living them again.”8 Apparently Chang w rote because he had reached the appropriate time of life to ex­ press sentiments in just this way. A few examples cannot establish the point that the individual writer’s subjective protests against the examinations and the sort of training they required follow a fascinating pattern of stereotyped detail. But they may lend this point a plausibility which ensuing discussion will strengthen. II W e have not been dealing merely with a curious but meaningless set of literary conventions. The civü service examinations have been

DAVID S. NIVISON 232 called the hallmark of the “Confucian state.” Preparing for them in order to seek an official career was a basic duty to family and to the world. Their existence as an institution more than anything else signalized the ascendancy of the man of learning and culture in society. Yet, almost from the beginnings of this institution in the later empire, die examina­ tions, and the educational standards they produced, were resented and criticized. Students resented being fettered and constrained. States­ men found the institution wanting as a means of "nurturing talent” and recruiting the best men for public service. Literary critics and moral philosophers bewailed its influence on the quality of letters and on the state of public and private virtue. This polyphony of protest may be found in every generation. And the surprising fact is that throughout all this we find the examination-education complex, the function and effect of which was to ensure the dominance of the Confucian classical tradition, criticized precisely by appeal to Confucian moral, aesthetic, and political values. This is not a situation we would have expected. Its oddity may help to explain the fact that, for all of the attention scholars have given to the imperial examination system and its ramifications, the long tradi­ tion of protest against this system has been almost completely ignored. In what follows I shall attem pt to open the m atter up. My attem pt will of necessity be extremely superficial, for die volume of relevant literature is enormous: in this literature we must include innumerable personal letters and essays, novels (such as Ju-lin Wai-shih by W u Ching-tzu, 1701-54) on the life of the literati, as well as many official and unofficial treatises on public policy. Simply to relate the history of reforms and proposed changes in the system would require volumes. But an analysis of some of the ideals and motivations which perpetually generated this criticism may be more feasible. The motive of Liu Chih-chi’s self-assertion was his wish to pursue an easily comprehended interest—namely, in history and in the traditions of historical writing; and for this interest he has litde compulsion to offer any further justification ( though there is ample Confucian justification for it). W ith Ou-yang Hsiu the case is different. He admired the writing of Han Yii, yes; but this was not all. He was also “devoted to the past,” and he scorned present-day styles, mastery in which served others in the mere pursuit of gain. We are inclined to ask. On behalf of just what ideals is this disinterestedness urged? Ou-yang Hsiu does not say, but it is fair to note that this very disinterestedness, the olaim that the quest for gain and fame for oneself is unworthy of a writer, is itself an ideal of a higher order. Why should it seem appropriate to Ou-yang Hsiu to link this attitude with an esteem for Han Yii? The reason may be that Han Yii has given this ideal for the literary

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man in China perhaps its most beautiful and intensely moving expres­ sion. In a letter “In Reply to Li I,” Han, for the benefit of his correspond­ ent (who apparently had asked questions about literary art, and per­ haps had sent some w ritings), describes his own earlier efforts to learn to write. First, H an Yü says, he buried himself in the writings of the Han and of pre-H an antiquity, uncritically admiring all that he found. H e was oblivious to the world around him and quite unaware of die criticism or amusement of others. At this stage, he says, in w hat he wrote he tried to keep out “hackneyed phrases,” but the going was very difficult; the words th at came to him just didn’t fit. At a later stage in his progress, he began to be more critical of ancient writers, seeing the good and the bad in their writings distinguished “as clearly as black and white.” W hen he tried to w rite himself, words now came much more freely; and he tested the results by observing reactions of others to his literary efforts: “If people were amused at my work, then I was happy; if they praised it, then I was worried, since then I knew that other people’s ways of talking m ust still infect it.” Now, words came in a flood; but this im­ posed a severe task of self-examination on him. He must hold up the flow of language, make sure that it was all “pure,” by “cultivating” it, “guiding it into the path of goodness and right, reinvigorating it in the springs of the Shih ( Book of Poetry) and the Shu ( Book of H istory)” The task of learning to w rite is not at all one of learning verbal tricks and forms; it is a task of self-cultivation, a moral exercise, a m atter of nourishing ones cKi or spirit; cKi is like water, words the mere objects th at “float” in it; if ch'i is adequate, there will be no trouble with words. This literary ideal is found everywhere in Chinese critical thought since T an g (it is surely related to the ideal of the “gentleman painter” de­ scribed by Mr. Cahill elsewhere in this volume) and has had the effect of making literary criticism in China a variety of moral philosophy. “If you hope to grasp the ancient ideal of writing,” H an tells his reader, “then do not hope for quick success, do not be tem pted by power and advantage; nourish your roots and w ait for the fruit; add the oil and w ait for the light . . .” A person who does this will come close to perfection. But, Han stresses, he will be largely unappreciated; he will “seldom be used by others,” i.e., employed by those in power. Setting out to be a good writer is not to be advertised as a good way to get a position. Han closes by saying th at it is just because he realizes his friend is not interested in “gain” th at he is willing to speak to him frankly. “If you wait to be em­ ployed by others, you will be like a mere utensil; your being used or neglected w ill depend on others. The superior man is not like this. In ordering his mind, he has the Tao. In conducting himself, he is upright.” Rank anH position mean nothing to him. “W hen he is employed, he ap-

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plies his Tao to others. When he is unemployed, he transmits it to his disciples, commits it to writing and creates a model for later genera­ tions.”9 For anyone taking Han s view of writing really seriously, it is diffi­ cult to see how studying for the literary examinations—deliberately seeking the road to “gain” and preferment—could be anything but a stumbling block on the path of self-cultivation. And we should notice in particular how Han Yii associates not only writing, but also teaching, with indifference to mundane success or failure. The good man does not seek office. If it comes his way, he does his b est If it does not, he writes and teaches. In both modes of life he serves and is devoted to the Tao. But was the literary and moral ideal expressed in the letter to Li I actually related in this way to the problem of the examinations in Han Yus mind? Han has answered this question explicitly in a letter to an­ other friend named Ts ui Li-chih. At the time of writing, Han had for die second time failed to obtain office through the placing examinations offered under the Board of Civil Office, and Ts ui had written to urge him not to lose h eart Han replied with a long apologia: When I was sixteen or seventeen, I had no knowledge of the realities of the world. I read the books of the sages, and thought to myself that when a man enters official service, he is acting only for others with no advantage for himself. When I reached twenty, I was distressed by the poverty of my house­ hold; I consulted with members of my family and came to understand that official service is not just to the advantage of persons other than oneself.

Han went to the capital, noted that men who became chin-shih were highly honored, and set out eagerly to acquire the skill to become one of them. He was shown examples of questions that had been used in the examinations administered by the Board of Ceremonies—calling for pieces of rhymed prose, poetry, and essays, and considered that he could write these things without studying, so he tried at the examinations; but the examiners’ standards were purely subjective; Han tried four times before succeeding, and even then was not given a p o st Following this he tried twice at the placing examination, excited by the idea of the fame he would gain by passing—though he noticed with surprise when he looked at successful essays that they were of just the kind required by the Board of Ceremonies. He set to work, like an actor learning his lines, for several months; again, however, he was disappointed in his quest for office. Then, Han says, he took stock of himself, and realized that the stand­ ards he was following and those of the examiners were utterly different. If Ch’ii Yiian, Mencius, and Ssu-ma Ch’ien were to find themselves com-

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peting for these honors they would be ashamed; they simply would not push themselves forw ard in this way; but if they did take part in this abysmal competition, they would surely fail. Yet, if these men were living today, though their Tao were not recognized by the world, would this shake their confidence? Would they be willing to have their worth decided in competition with mere time-servers by the rating of one dunce of an examiner, and be pleased or distressed at his decision?

H an then realized th at the most he could hope to gain from success in die examinations would be advantages of a paltry m aterial sort. H e concluded by assuring T sui (and himself) that he was not (as T sui had suggested) to be compared to Pien Ho in Han Fei-tzu's story, who had twice tendered his “uncut jade” to the King of Ch u only to have a foot cut off on each attem pt. He has offered no “jade” to his ruler—yet. But he can. The times are troubled; the world has fallen short of ancient ideals; die dynasty is m ilitarily insecure; the emperor and his ministers are worried; H an can analyze these difficulties and offer his views. Perhaps he will be recognized and rewarded with a high post; but if not, Han said, he can tend his sequestered plot in quiet­ ness, and search out the details of the history of the dynasty, die lives of its great men, and w rite a “classic” on the T ang, which will condemn villains and sycophants and praise examples of concealed virtue. This he will pass on to posterity forever.10 A really good man, apparendy, is above playing the ordinary game, and will refuse to accept the judgm ent m eted out to the many. If the court has the wisdom to use him, good; if not, he is not hindered in his devotion to die Tao. His position approaches th at of die recluse de­ scribed by Professor M ote in this volume, and the writing of history— traditionally a critical exercise—appears as a peculiarly suitable occupa­ tion for the man who withdraws. Han's concern with the examinations in relation to his own literary ideals suggests th at in his tim e the examination system was an active political issue. This seems indeed to have been the case. In the later T ang empire, as Mr. Pulleyblank's study in this volume indicates, pro­ found (and as yet inadequately understood) social changes were taking place. The great aristocratic families of the north, which had been powerful in an earlier era, were declining or breaking up, and “new men” from outside this closed elite were coming on the scene. The availability of office to members of different social or regional groups was therefore a m atter of intense interest, and the question was raised whether the examinations brought into office men who truly deserved it. A prom inent criticism was that the examinations rewarded the man who merely happened to have a good memory, though he might have no

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grasp of the “essential meaning” of the Classics—their relevance to cur­ rent moral and political issues. Another persistent issue was the pro­ priety of requiring of the candidate a facility in highly artificial literary forms such as the fu (“rhymed prose”) and pan (“decision”) which could have nothing to do with his performance in office. Yiian Chen in 806, for example, in an essay submitted at the Palace Examination, made a revolutionary proposal that chief emphasis in the examinations be placed on knowledge of contemporary law and history, and that die competition be opened to all ranks of society (he would have abolished the examination on which Han Yii foundered, the placing examination, which required a candidate to prove that his father was neither an artisan, nor a merchant, nor a crim inal).11 But such criticisms do not question the value of the examination sys­ tem in principle. One important kind of criticism did do just this. Curiously, we find this criticism brought out with special clarity in a somewhat backhanded justification of the literary requirements. This appears in the “Monograph on Examinations” of the Hsin Tang Shu. The authors observe that although in the chin-shih examination “the choice is made on the basis of literary compositions written in a vague style and on subjects of litde practical value,” still the successful candi­ dates do perform well in office. They continue: In later ages (i.e., after classical antiquity), customs became more and more corrupted, and superiors and inferiors came to suspect each other. Hence it came to be thought that the correctness of a candidate's use of rimes would allow examiners to judge his merits objectively. Whenever this procedure was abandoned, . . . no stable standard could be established. And consequently, it has never been possible to change anything. Alas, it is clear therefore that the method used in the Three Dynasties of antiquity, whereby local districts presented men to the sovereign because of their virtuous conduct, is one which cannot obtain except under a perfect government.11

Here eleventh-century historians are picking up ideas from a proposal made in 763 to “restore” certain features of a system for the direct recom­ mendation of “virtuous” men to the court. Nonetheless, they are edi­ torializing; and we might bear in mind that the editor who directed the compilation of this part of the Hsin Tang Shu—in all probability writing parts of it himself—was Ou-yang Hsiu. The idea of doing away with the examinations entirely, and of filling the ranks of government servants by recommendation of “virtuous” men from below, was resurrected again and again.13 It bears witness to an almost incredible extreme of political idealism in Sung and Ming f^hina. The vision was of a perfect society supposed to have existed in antiquity, a government of perfect virtue, in which there would be complete

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m utual trust and harmony between men of high and low estate. In­ feriors would know their station and have no desire to rise beyond their merits, while those above would be motivated only by the purest love of virtue itself. In such a world order, the best man would always be chosen (and those not chosen would have no resentm ent), for it would always be the best who would come to the attention of die rulers, and the rulers would always be able to recognize the best. Examinations would not only be superfluous in such a state of affairs, they would be incompatible w ith it, for they would excite a spirit of striving and of selfish competition among the people. This is just what the examinations do; and for many Sung and Ming philosophers this corrupting and dis­ turbing influence exercised upon the mind, preventing men from “fixing their aim” on ultim ate moral values instead of short-term gains, is the greatest fault of the system. The utopian picture of an ancient, prebureaucratic, perfect Confud a n society was a basic element underlying and shaping opinion about educational policy and examination practices in the factional politics of the Sung; indeed this utopian conception seems to be central in all reform ist and counterreformist thought in that period. Here I cannot take up die details of these policy struggles, save to note that these ques­ tions were always im portant. Examination requirements were changed constantly, and this must have resulted in much anxiety, leading in turn to an intensification of concern over these problems.14 Basically, die call for ending the examinations and turning back to some earlier and pre­ sumably better m ethod of bringing good men into government—easily combined with a Mencius-inspired concern for the reform of local schools—was of a piece w ith Mencian “well-field” utopianism in eco­ nomics and land policy. Essentially it was part of an idealistic regret th at the “Confucian” bureaucratic state, with its contamination of Legal­ ism and its (real or fancied) attendant moral corruption in official life, had come into existence at all.15 Two illustrations will bear this out, both from Sung philosophers of first rank. Ch’eng I ( 1033-1107), in a long discussion of examinations as conducted in the “three colleges” of the Sung Im perial Academy, ex­ pressed the usual regrets: the formal, detailed, legally prescribed lit­ erary requirem ents were not of use in evaluating the moral worth of the students, while the atmosphere of competition turned their minds to a love of “profit,” and m ade them actually forget their parents. The trouble is th at the government relies on “detailed regulations” for ap­ praising candidates for the civil service, rather than on whatever ability those in hjgh places may have to recognize “virtue.” But are “detailed regulations” really dispensable?

Someone may say, “If the right men are obtained for the highest positions, then all is well. But if not, it is better to have many detailed regulations to guard against wrongdoing, so that there will be a clear course to follow." Such a person fails entirely to realize that the ancient rulers devised laws in the expectation that there would be suitable men to carry them out. I have never heard that they made laws for the case in which capable men could not be found. If the high officials are not good men, and do not understand the principle of education, but merely adhere to the empty letter and the minute details of the law, surely they will not be able by these means to lead men to perfect their talents.1*

Ch’eng’s reply is a standard Confucian rejoinder to quasi-Legalist recipes: the law cannot effect its own implementation; at best it is a guide for the judgment of good men. But Ch eng did not proceed very far with diese anti-bureaucratic regrets. Another philosopher, Chang Tsai (1020-77), however, was so repelled by the spectacle of vulgar competition for positions that he praised, in contrast, the giving and holding of hereditary offices, which had persisted in the later bureaucratic empire as a not very significant and rather artificial continuation of ancient feudal forms. The distinction of hereditary office is the way a ruler gives recognition to those who achieve great things and honors the virtuous, cherishing them and being generous to them, displaying his boundless grace. Their heirs therefore ought to be happy with their duties and be encouraged to achievement . . . excelling in purity and abstaining from the pursuit of profit.

But in these times, Chang complained, “descendants of high dignitaries like to compete with ordinary people, working at the craft of versemaking and selling their wares to the authorities," i.e., sitting for die examinations in the hope of getting appointments, "not realizing that actively seeking for office is wrong."1T Chang Tsai s feeling that it is unseemly for a man of quality to en­ gage in the common scramble for advantage is here perhaps reinforced by another persuasion: that die gendeman will not push himself for­ ward. This is the conduct one expects of a social climber; the true “su­ perior man” waits until his prince calls him. But this is not for excess of humility; on the contrary, he may be deeply offended if it be thought that his merits are open to question. An amusing story told of “the philoso­ pher Cheng” (either Cheng 1 or his brother Ch’eng Hao, 1032-85) shows how ingrained these attitudes were. Hsieh Chi passed through Loyang on his way from Shu to die capital and saw Ch’eng-tzu. The master asked him, “Why have you undertaken this trip?” He answered, “I am about to take the examination for a post in the Bureau of Education.” The master did not reply. Chi said, “What do you think of it?” The master said, “Once when I was buying a servant-girl I wanted to test her. Her mother became angry and would not permit it, saying, 'My daughter is not one who may first be tried out/ Today you want to become

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a teacher of men and want to undergo a test for this purpose! You would certainly be laughed at by that old woman.” Chi subsequently did not go.18 Dignity is a precious thing indeed! Clearly, a dignified and lofty refusal to compete, a high-minded protest th at one is not interested in advancement and will leave this m atter to fate, and the cherishing of a picture of society in which the poisonous craving for “profit” is absent, are all attitudes which fit closely together. In considering the bearing of Neo-Confucian ethical thought upon the examination problem, we cannot neglect the most famous of Sung philosopher-statesmen, Chu Hsi (1130-1200). Chu, describing the idealized ancient practice of recruiting officials by direct recommenda­ tion without examinations, says th at as a result of it “men’s minds were composed and they had no distracting desires. Night and day they were diligent, fearing only lest they be wanting in virtue, and not caring whether rank and salary came their way.” Clearly he too shared the common Neo-Confucian nostalgic utopian ideal.19 Chu Hsi m ade the foregoing statem ent in an essay which in its day was famous—a “Private Opinion on Schools and Examinations,” which, the “Monograph on Examinations” in the Sung Shih tells us, “was read by the whole world.”20 In it he was bitterly critical of examination stand­ ards and practices in his day. He proposed at least a limited use of direct recommendation, and an end to practices of favoritism; in particular he called for fairer geographical distribution when allocating quotas of candidates to be passed. The main p art of his proposal, however, would have had the effect of making the examinations very different in content and tone: he would change the subject m atter of the examinations through a twelve-year cycle, guaranteeing that die state would have at its disposal men w ith a wide variety of specialized backgrounds. Ex­ aminations in poetry and fu would be suppressed. Chu wanted his candidates to think, and to know how to think for themselves; in study­ ing the Classics, they should study not only the classical texts but also the commentaries of different schools of interpreters, and in answering a question should be prepared to cite different opinions, concluding with their own judgment. Chu w ent on actually to list commentaries he would have examinees required to read; somewhat surprisingly, com­ mentaries by W ang An-shih are included for all the most im portant Classics, although Chu was in general opposed to Wang’s policies. Chu expected much if his proposals were acted upon. If they were adopted, “men’s minds would be composed and there would be no spirit of hustling and striving; there would be actual virtuous conduct and none of the corruption of empty words; there would be solid learning and no unusable talent.”21 Chu in this essay was flailing away at the system, and doing so, at

least in part, in terms of his ideal of a perfect social and political order. But this ideal of a perfectly virtuous world was ambiguous. It could be used, not to criticize the edifice of requirements, standards, pressures, or u n f a ir practices which confronted the student, but rather to upbraid the student himself. For one can say that in a perfectly virtuous society the government would not make the mistakes the examination system em­ bodied; but, by the same argument, students would not exhibit the qualities of restless self-seeking and anxiety that these mistakes induced. Chu has a rather often-quoted remark that “it is not that the examina­ tions are a vexation to men, but simply that men vex themselves about the examinations.” And he continues, A scholar of lofty vision and broad understanding, when he reads the books of the sages, will produce writing which reflects what he grasps, and all con­ siderations of gain and loss, advantage and disadvantage, are set aside. Even though he constantly works at preparing for the examinations, he is undis­ turbed. If Confucius were to come back to life now, he would not avoid the examinations; but surely they would not disturb him.22 Chu goes on to admit that as a young man he himself had a certain disdain for the examinations, but this feeling was not, he argues, based on any understanding of the matter. The situation could be compared to that of one who has a natural dislike for the taste of wine or for a certain color, this natural and unreasoned reaction being of no impor­ tance. The foregoing remarks, along with much more of the same sort, are preserved in a systematic anthology of Chu’s sayings and writings on various subjects compiled by the Ch mg government in the early eight­ eenth century, the Chu Tzu Ch’iian Shu, edited by Li Kuang-ti. The Ch’iian Shu was intended as an orthodox presentation of Chu’s philoso­ phy from the official point of view; and in the section presenting C hus opinions on the examination problem, remarks by Chu are culled out of his writings and put together so as to justify the system against typical complaints made by students. Needless to say, in diese pages the edi­ tors do not even hint at the existence of Chu’s “Private Opinion.” We do not need to regard the Ch’iian Shu as purely a Ch’ing document, how­ ever. It illustrates not only the way in which Neo-Confucian idealism could be turned about to justify the status quo, for the student com­ plaints which Chu is shown to have answered in the Ch’iian Shu must after all have been complaints actually brought to him by his contempo­ raries. They are quite possibly as typical of student dissatisfaction in the twelfth century as in the seventeenth. Let us see how some of the complaints and answers go. Notice that in the remarks just reproduced Chu preaches that a really worthy scholar would “set aside” considerations of “gain and loss.” This sounds

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like Han Yü. But there is an im portant difference; namely, in the one case we have a defiant scholar bravely telling himself and the world that he will not be moved by the temptations to “fame and profit” that the state and the pressures of society create; whereas here we have a teacher pontifically telling students that they ought not to be so moved, and adding that if they are not, they can have no reason to complain of w hat is expected of them. In this same passage there is another element worth noting. Chu says that he himself as a young man found examination studies naturally distasteful to him, but argues that this natural disinclination was of no significance. The plain implication in this is that Chu was approached by unhappy students who also found their examination studies distaste­ ful, who felt th at the guidance of their own inclinations was valuable, and who found themselves, like Ou-yang Hsiu and Liu Chih-chi, in­ clined to spend their time on other lines of study and self-improvement. Chu is shown by the Ch’üan Shu editors to have dealt with this plaint in various ways. Sometimes he simply pooh-poohs all the fuss about the m atter: Concerning study for the examinations, there is really nothing very impor­ tant to be said. When a man of worth devotes himself to it, he will presum­ ably have some energy to spare. If he has understood the true philosophy, then in the course of his daily activities, whatever their degree of importance, he will not need to divide his attention: if he always first understands “this,” he will succeed at “that.”23 In other words, see that you cultivate yourself properly and study die right point of view, and there will be no conflict—you will automatically do well in the examinations. As H an Yii had said, a good man will naturally write well. Chu’s friend and rival philosopher Lu Chiu-yüan picked up the same idea when, in 1181, he was guest lecturer at C hus W hite Deer Grotto Academy. Cultivate yourself circumspectly, says Lu, instill in yourself a devotion to right, and learn to have no impulses tow ard selfish expediency. “W hen one who conducts himself in this way approaches the examination halls, his writing will always express the learning and self-cultivation in which he is constantly engaged and the richness stored up within himself, and he will not offend against the sages.”24 W hat if a young man self-importandy and loftily says that he has better things to do w ith himself than study examination essays? Chu offers the following dash of cold water: Not taking the examinations is really only a small matter. But nowadays when someone says he is not going to take the examinations it is treated as some­ thing surprising and extraordinary. As I see it, as soon as one devotes one’s thought to understanding the Tao, one takes a bit of respite from this sort

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o£ »hing (i.e., the examinations), and there is obviously nothing of importance in this fact. I don t know why, but [when people begin to understand the Tao] they automatically look down on all sorts of wealth, honor, and attain­ ment . . .25 This is less interesting as an example of Chu’s attitude than it is as a negative image of a point of view which must have been prevalent among students. Chu recognizes die common rationalization of students that they must study for the examinations in order to support their parents, and he condemns it. Such an attitude merely indicates that the student’s mind is not composed—that he still feels a conflict between studying for the examinations and “real learning.”26 Sometimes, however, Chu admits by implication that there can be such a conflict, and attempts to deal with it or resolve it by some argument or stratagem. On one occasion, a disciple named Huang Ch’ien was ordered by his father to go to the prefectural school and study for the examinations, a course the young student was much disinclined to take. Huang laid his situation before Chu, who replied, “You can study for the examinations in the daytime and read the books you want to at night!” and added that if Huang re­ fused to follow his father’s wishes, father and son would become es­ tranged, a situation which, he implies, would be as detrimental to Huang’s program of “study” (Le., self-cultivation) as die examinations course could ever be.aT As we might expect, Wang Yang-ming shared die Neo-Confucian vision of a perfect, strife-free society. W riting in 1525, he gives this idyllic picture of antiquity: The man at the village well or in the rural district, die fanner, the artisan, the merchant, everybody had this (the true) learning . . . and looked only to die perfecting of character as important. How is this to be accounted for? They were not subject to the confusion inherent in much hearing and seeing, nor to the annoyance of remembering and reciting, nor to extravagance of speech and composition, nor to the striving and gaining of honor and ad­ vantage. The result was that they were filial toward their parents, respectful to their elders, and faithful toward their friends. In this remote age, “the government schools were devoted to perfecting virtue, . . .” and “the people of the empire, with clear, resplendent vir­ tue, all viewed one another as relatives of one home. . . . They did not strive for exalted position,” each being content with his station. People at this time were not envious of others’ accomplishments: “They did not distinguish between themselves and others. . . . They can be compared with the body of a single person . . .” and as one’s eyes are not ashamed

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because they cannot hear, likewise no man was ashamed or was thought ill of for lack of the intellectual attainments found in the great.28 If this is noteworthy, it is chiefly as an intense (if dream y) re-expres­ sion of a common Neo-Confucian political ideal. It is obvious, at least, th at die addition of an examination system would seriously mar Wang’s pretty scene. If there is a novel emphasis in w hat he says, it is found in his almost Taoist feeling that the purity of men s minds will be injured by too much “seeing and hearing,” “remembering and reciting,” or by “extravagance of speech and composition.” For it is typical of W ang th at he has a rather wholesale distrust of the verbal, conceptual side of man’s m ental existence. His distrust of m ere “words” fits into a growing intellectual trend which became very im portant in the Ch’ing. This attitude can be more easily understood if we examine the char­ acter of the district and metropolitan examinations during the Ming (to a large extent die description will fit the Ch’ing also). The Ming ex­ aminations followed, with some modification, the form of the Sung ex­ aminations as revised in 1071 when, as a result of one of the reforms of Wang An-shih, the ming-ching examination was abolished and certain features of it incorporated into the chin-shih examination. As it ulti­ m ately took shape, the Ming examination scheme (for both chin-shih and chii-jen degrees) consisted of three sittings or tests several days a p a rt The first test consisted of “essays on the meaning of the Classics” ( ching-i ) —three on the Four Books, and four on texts from other Clas­ sics. The second test was given over to lun (“essays”) and p’an (“dédi­ sions,” a T an g examination form ) and to questions on imperial “in­ structions”; the third, to ts e (“dissertations”) on history and current problems.29 As far as this description goes, such an examination might be quite comprehensive. Actually, as Ku Yen-wu points out, the only test given any careful attention by the examiners was the first, on the meaning of the Classics and the Four Books.30 Further, although all can­ didates had to answer questions on the Four Books, it was possible to get by with specialization on just one other Classic. This was certainly very far from w hat Chu Hsi had wanted in his “Private Opinion.” But this was not all. W here Chu had w anted candidates to have a knowledge of many different schools of criticism, the Ming system re­ quired candidates to prepare themselves in the views of just one school, ironically the school of Chu Hsi himself. After the official publication, in the Yung-lo reign, of the compendium of the opinions of this school, the Ssu-shu W u-ching Ta-ch’üan, even the standard T’ang commentaries were dispensed with. In consequence, less and less came to depend on wide learning or genuine understanding, even of the Classics them­ selves; more and more it came to be crucially im portant for the candidate

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to excel in the style of his essays on the meaning of classical texts in die first test.81 What of the form of these essays? A form for the ching-i essay had been fixed by the Board of Ceremonies shortly after Wang An-shih’s reform; and as such official forms will, it evolved over successive reigns and dynasties. By the Ming, it had come to be fixed in eight sections (hence its popular name, pa-ku, “eight legs”). The number of words to be used in the essay was also fixed from time to time. A typical speci­ men takes the announced topic—a passage from one of the Classics—and analyzes it into two subthemes. The essay then moves into a more and more elaborate treatm ent of these two themes. In the main body of the essay, an extended sentence or group of sentences will be put forward on one of the themes; these are in loose, “ancient prose” style, but they are at once followed by an exactly similar sentence or set of sentences on the other theme, which mirror the earlier ones character for character. This game will be played several times before the essay reaches its close. In tone, the entire piece can effectively be compared with a sermon on a text from sacred scripture.82 The total effect is not at all displeasing, if one is merely browsing through a few of these curios, and surely some value must be acknowl­ edged in any literary form which required the Chinese literati to write well-constructed and systematically organized pieces of prose. But if one had to read and imitate such essays as if one’s life depended upon it for the years needed to acquire sufficient skill to satisfy the examiners, one can readily imagine that ennui would soon give way to intense dis­ taste. The necessity of finding antitheses in the theme in order to carry the essay through was particularly galling, since it was a purely formal requirement which took precedence over whatever meaning the classical passage might contain. Candidates had to be prepared to distort, or even invent, meaning in the assigned text, and had by long practice to learn this art thoroughly.88 Worse, the examiners over the centuries not unnaturally developed a little tradition of playing a game with the candidates, by choosing texts which would be difficult to handle in the required way, or which were chopped out of context in the most misleading fashion possible, with the natural phrasing and breaks in meaning of the original text largely ignored. An example, given by Chu Hsi (who excoriated the practice in his “Private Opinion”) is a Sung examination question consisting of three lines from the Shih ching, viz., Shang t’ien chih tsai Wu sheng wu ch’ou I hsing Wen Wang84

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Legge s translation is as follows: The doings of high heaven have neither sound nor smell. Take your pattern from King Wen, . . .85 The second half of the second pair of lines, which is dropped, is ap­ proximately “and all countries will give you their confidence.” But of course much more context even than this would be required if one were to make sense out of the passage. Still, Chu Hsi’s example is tame com­ pared to w hat sometimes happened. Imagine yourself writing an essay on the following five words: Kou wei wu pen ch’i36 These words correspond approximately to the italic words in the fol­ lowing passage from M encius: The disciple Hsii said, “Chung-ni often praised water, saying, *0 water, O water/ What did he find in water to praise?” Mencius replied, “There is a spring of water; how it gushes out! It rests not day nor night. It fills up every hole, and then advances, flowing on to the four seas. Such is water having a spring! It was this which he found in it to praise. uBut suppose that the water has no spring.—In the seventh and eighth months when the rain falls abundantly, the channels in the fields are all filled, but their being dried up again may be expected in a short time. So a superior man is ashamed of a reputation beyond his merits.”87 In the pa-ku as part of the examinations, clearly, we have a prime ex­ ample of violation of the classical principle that “one must not let words injure meaning.” The term pa-ku came widely to connote an exercise in mere verbal cleverness w ith utter disregard for content. Reflect that every schoolboy had to struggle with this form, and that often all pos­ sible social, family, and pedagogical pressure was put upon him to m aster it. And consider that in order to m aster it he had to develop by long practice at least a hypothetical sort of taste for it, and thus condition himself in a device for which he was likely to have both philosophical and aesthetic disgust. The bitter complaints about shih wen (this term now had come to mean pa-ku) in the letters and reminiscences of sev­ enteenth- and eighteenth-century writers are not hard to understand. Ku Yen-wu, in the seventeenth century, was one of several now famous men who m editated and wrote on the reasons for the decline and fall of the Ming Dynasty. Much of his Jih-chih Lu has this sort of point, and in particular the parts of that book dealing with examinations and schools, though treating these subjects in great historical depth, are pointed up into a criticism, often extremely biting, of the character and operation of the Ming examination system. In many of these criti­ cal sections, however, he writes as though he were talking of contem-

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porary conditions, and we probably must assume that at the time he wrote conditions had not greatly changed. Ku insists that writing, to be worth anything, must say something, and the writer must be unencumbered by formal restrictions in the saying of it: Writing can have no fixed form. When a form is set for people to follow in their writing, the writing will not be worth talking about. The Tang selected its officials on their skill in writing fti, and the fu became utterly decadent. The Sung selected men on their skill in composing essays and dissertations (lun ts’e) and these genres likewise decayed. The Ming selected men on the basis of their essays on the meaning of the Classics (ching-i, i.e., pa-ku), and this form of writing became worse than anything that had been seen before. The reason in each case was that writing was required to follow a fixed form, and as a result the writing continually became worse. The reason the examina­ tion replies of Ch'ao Tso, Tung Chung-shu, and Kung-sun Hung are out­ standing in history is that in their day there was no fixed form for writing. If we wish to invigorate the writing of the present day we must not fetter it with forms, and then outstanding talent will make its appearance.88 In Sung, Yüan, and Ming, the characteristic objection to the exami­ nation system had been its tendency to induce a fever of competition. Ku’s indictment of pa-ku suggests that the characteristic objection was now to the examinations' bad influence on writing and thinking. By stressing purely formal, merely verbal inducements to stagnation, die examinations actually deprived the state of a supply of good men. The situation has become so bad, Ku thinks, that the only remedy is to suspend the examinations altogether for a time, and teach people anew how to study. Ku also attacks the brainless orthodoxy which he feels the examinations propagate, and recommends that examination ques­ tions on the Four Books deal with "doubtful" matters, questions which will probe into embarrassing contradictions. Ku cites the pan genre on the T ang examinations as exemplifying what he intends, but it is likely that some of the examination questions prepared by Wang Anshih would have served him even better. Ku, however, had a rather low opinion of the Sung reformer.89 Ku reserves his strongest language for a somewhat different matter, however. Just because the examinations place so much emphasis on formally correct essay writing, they do nothing to recognize or encour­ age really solid scholarship. Instead, the examinations are so contrived as to allow mere know-nothings to pass. Ku s exposé of the abuses by which this can occur is one of the bitterest and most interesting parts of his treatise. The trick consists of a practice Ku calls ni t’i, or "making up questions.” There is, he says, no evil greater than this in the whole system. It works as follows: In the crucial first test, when a candidate

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has to w rite essays on the Classics he has chosen as a specialty, there will usually be only a few dozen questions likely to be asked. Rich families and powerful dans engage well-known scholars and install diem in their family schools. The scholar then takes these few dozen themes and writes an essay for each, receiving pay according to the number of essays he writes. The sons and younger brothers in the family, and servant boys who are especially dever, are then made to memorize and study thoroughly these essays. When they go to the examination halls, eight or nine out of every ten themes announced will correspond to the themes they have studied, and they need only copy down the writings they have memorized.40 This procedure, Ku observes, is incomparably easier than the exami­ nations as they are traditionally pictured; for plainly, the son of a rich family m ight in this way pass without having read through the text of even one Classic. “The same procedure,” Ku writes, “is used for the Four Books. And when the grades are announced, these fellows turn out to be at the top. Many who are mere pretty-faced youths are selected for official appointments.” Ku then adds th at from time to tim e parts of the Classics have ceased to be drawn upon for examination themes, so that w hat a young man has to contend w ith in his preparation has become less and less, and the trick of “making up likely themes” becomes th at much easier. As a result, What men in former times needed ten years to accomplish can now be finished in one; what once required a year to leam can now be finished in a month. . . . But if by chance you ask someone about a Classic he has not read, there are those who will be so confused they will not know what book you are talking about. Therefore, I say that the injurious effects of pa-ku are as great as the effects of the Burning of the Books, and the ruination of talent that it brings about is worse than the result of the Burial of the Scholars. . . . Ku then recommends, citing Chu Hsi s “Private Opinion,” that candi­ dates be examined on passages in the Classics that would call for some original th in k in g , and that in studying one Classic they be required to gain a general acquaintance w ith the rest; that they be required to be­ come f a m ilia r w ith conflicting interpretations, and that in their answers they be required to render their own judgment. Further, themes used in die examinations should not be so standard that they can be guessed at in advance. “Then their essays will have to be w ritten in the exami­ nation halls, and it can really be determ ined whether a scholar under­ stands the Classics or not, and his ability to write can really be tested.”41 Not the least interesting part of w hat Ku says is his conviction that it is characteristically the rich who are most easily able to get away w ith m urder. But the substance of his plea is that solid scholarship should be demanded of a candidate at the examinations and should be

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the criterion of his worth. In this plea Ku perhaps had real influence, for his prestige as a classical scholar mounted enormously in die next century. Successive generations of scholars grew up who looked back to him with reverence, and many such men, of course, served frequendy as examining officials. One can well imagine that one of Ku’s "pretty­ faced youths” would have scant chance of passing under such an ex­ aminer as, say, Juan Yiian." But this same prestige of Ku as a classical scholar, and die philo­ logical Zeitgeist which developed in the eighteenth century, had eventu­ ally another and very different effect on examination standards. For although the tendency occasionally improved the caliber of examining officials, still, in any given case, the chances were that an examiner would find himself in the situation of passing judgment on a candidate or candidates who knew more philology than he did. Examiners caught in this sort of situation tend to look for a simple and foolproof line of defense into which to retreat. The examiner s recourse in the present case was to limit his inspection once again to mere questions of form: not, now, to the formal correctness of the candidate’s essays, but to the form of the individual characters he wrote—to his calligraphy. By the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, it was a ritual per­ fection in the handling of the brush which was the mark of the candidate most likely to succeed. Needless to say, this new situation provoked protests appropriate to it. Such an expression of protest is to be found in a bitterly sarcastic essay by Kung Tzu-chen, an intense, brilliant, and erratic scholar-official, philologist, poet, and friend of Wei Yiian and Lin Tse-hsii, who at­ tempted the examinations repeatedly before attaining die chin-shih degree in 1829, failing, however—as he believed, because of poor hand­ writing—to pass the palace examination which a successful chin-shih nor­ mally took. Kung s essay pretends to be a preface to a book he has written on calligraphy. He describes first, with mock reverence, the ritual of the palace examination in which he failed. The examining officers, “in court robes, face the throne and kneel thrice, touching their heads to the floor nine times. All the candidates do likewise, respect­ fully taking their positions. When die examination is over, the eight examiners then respectfully make a selection of ten papers in which the elevation of characters is according to form and in which even and deflected tones have been properly used, and which exhibit a formal calligraphic style which is especially sparkling and delicate, presenting these for the emperor’s perusal. . . Kung describes more examinations—the preliminary examination be­ fore the palace examination, and the examination following it, both.

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again, turning on the candidate’s skill in calligraphy. He misses no chance to dwell on die grave and weighty importance of success which turns on so trivial a m atter. “Those who place high in all three la m in a , tions are appointed to the Han-lin Academy. In our dynasty, the high­ est officials invariably arise from among members of the Han-lin, and more than half of the assistant ministers at court and of the governors of provinces are chosen in the same way.” To be chosen for a clerkship in the Grand Council is likewise a great honor; for “in time of war the function of the Grand Council is to assist the throne in making plans by which victory is decided, while in time of peace it provides advice based on die records of earlier emperors in the issuance of edicts affect­ ing the im perial household.” But, “when one is recommended to the Grand Council there is an examination, in which selection is made as before on the basis of calligraphic skill.” Kung goes on to explain to us how other im portant posts are filled, and always with the same final twist. Finally Kung tips his hand: I, Kung Tzu-chen, passed the examination in the Board of Ceremonies; three times I went up for the palace examination and three times I failed. I was not assigned to the Han-lin Academy. I was examined for the Grand Council but was not given a post there. . . . So I have withdrawn to my home and have reproached myself, and have written a book in self-criticism. Its con­ tents consist of twelve sections discussing the principles of selecting a fine brush-tip, five sections on the proper method of grinding the ink and im­ pregnating the brush, . . . one hundred and twenty sections on fine points in the drawing of the dot and in the execution of the sweeping down-stroke, twenty-two sections on the framing of characters, twenty-four sections on the spacing of characters in column, three sections on quality of spirit; and seven sections on natural temper. Having finished the work, I have entided it A New Treatise on Gaining Office, and am entrusting it to my descendants. Kung dates his “preface” the fourteenth year of Tao-kuang (1834).43 Needless to say, Kung’s Treatise was never w ritten or even seriously contemplated. Kung’s bitterness about calligraphy, it should be stressed, was provoked by a situation peculiar to his time. W e find a very different attitude in Ku Yen-wu. Ku would have his candidates know how to write characters well, and no nonsense. He cites in this connection, and w ith evident approval, a practice in court examinations in the Northern Ch’i Dynasty. In those high and far-off times, it seems, if a candidate’s writing was sloppy, he was required as a penalty to drink a pint of ink.44 The Chinese civil service examinations were not discontinued until 1905. The rem ainder of the story, however, would be a study in itself, and I lack both the space and the knowledge to enter upon it. But it

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does seem plain that it would be hasty to ascribe the Chinese state's rejection of the examination system simply to a Westernizing fever, or to say that die Chinese did away with that system merely in order to be rid of a conservative institutional force. Perhaps it will turn out that what the "impact of die West” accomplished was to tip the balance in favor of persuasions which were centuries old, but which had not been strong enough radically to alter the set institutions of a bureau­ cratic state. The complaint that the examinations failed to nourish talents of practical use to die state was not a new and radical idea in die nineteenth century; on die contrary, it was a familiar criticism in the ninth. The complaint of Ku Yen-wu (and Chu Hsi) that the examinations fostered a cult of "empty words" and dead forms was an argument repeated with force in memorials preceding die system's aboli­ tion. The idea of a Confucian utopia, in which Neo-Confucian philoso­ phers lodged their moral objections to the system, was an idea which was by no means dead in the late nineteenth century. Perhaps it is not dead yet. The examination system must certainly be called Confucian. It gave form to the ideal that die ruler should select die best men as his offi­ cials, and it provided in most periods a fixed if narrow and difficult avenue to prestige and position for that social group who had a special interest in reading and cherishing the Confucian classical texts. And yet the bitter regrets the Chinese have had about the system must also be called Confucian. The Neo-Confucian utopian ideal, and the "anti­ formalist" and moral criteria of literary value enunciated by Han Yii in the ninth century and by Ku Yen-wu in the seventeenth are essential parts of the idealistic side of the Confucian tradition which has its roots in Mencius. When we consider the position of the individual student or candi­ date, we see that he was pushed in two directions at once. He must do the right tiling for his parents and family; the ipsissima verba of the Master could be cited in abundance to assure him of this; also it was the duty of a Confucian to take office and “put his Tao into practice" if he could. In the later empire, the only apparent way to perform these duties was to prepare for the examinations and seek official position thereby. Yet the Confucian also had a duty to cultivate himself and to respect his own dignity. Entry into the competition for office obliged him, it seemed, to place “profit" ahead of “right" in his own personal ordering of values, and at least to seem to be seeking the approbation of persons, whether gossiping townspeople or examining officials, whom he might regard as vulgar or petty-minded. If we read reflectively a novel such

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as Ju-lin Wai-shih, we suspect that the scorn measured out to examiners and examination w riting is, so to speak, but the exposed part of an iceberg whose bulk is the pervasive revulsion of independent-minded men against social pressures to conform, to accept the vulgar conven­ tions and values, to chase after the pretty tags of so-called success, to court favor with the "best” families in town. Beneath this disposition was always the conception of the Superior Man, who cannot be moved by m ere things. A Chinese who thought seriously about himself and his society did not live in a placid intellectual world in which all his questions had ready answers. He lived in a world of tensions, both social and intel­ lectual-tensions such as those I have been describing; and if we are to understand his politics, his literature, his philosophy, we must measure these tensions and their effect upon him. W e must see him as he was.

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The Mongols conquered North China in the early 1230’s, and completed their conquest of the rest of the country in the years 1275-79. The North already had been held for a century by the Chin Tatars, another alien and (in Chinese eyes) barbarian conquering peo­ ple from beyond China’s northern frontiers. The wounds caused by this long division between alien-ruled North China and Chinese-ruled South China were further aggravated by the attitudes and policies of the Yiian dynasty, as the Mongol government of the newly reunited Chinese world was called. The Mongols themselves faced a difficult adjustment when, as no­ madic tribesmen, they suddenly became the rulers, or at least the hold­ ers of power within the ruling group, of a vast sedentary population. Moreover, with each of the first few generations of their rule the role they assigned to China in their world empire shifted and changed. Only gradually did these Mongol rulers come to see themselves as the suc­ cessors to earlier Chinese dynasties, and as Chinese emperors. The Chinese, on their part, often were moved to fierce resentment of the Mongols, not so much by the fact of alien rule itself as by the lack of regard in which these barbarian rulers, beyond all others in their his­ tory, held their ancient and revered way of life. Those things which the Chinese held to be the essentials of civilization—their Confucian ethical and social principles; their theories and forms of civihan-administered, bureaucratic government; their humanistic culture—suffered serious de­ cline, and seemed to many to face the danger of extinction. An incipient racism made brief appearance, contradicting in its spirit the traditional patronizing Chinese attitude toward “barbarian” neighbors. Of all the rulers in China’s history, the Mongols were perhaps the least well-equipped to deal with Chinese problems and the least con­ cerned about dealing with them. Moreover, the Yiian period was a period of instability, in which many kinds of new forces were at work. In some respects this was beneficial, but in many respects it was not, and

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in almost all respects it alarmed and grieved the educated, thinking Chinese of the time. The magnificent achievements of the Mongols in such m atters as military organization and technique scarcely impressed their Chinese subjects, who saw only the low quality of Mongol gov­ ernment and the deterioration of social order. By die same token, die developments in literature and painting for which we now value the Yiian period offered litde solace to the Chinese literatus of the time. The times were hard; as the Yiian dynasty wore on, they became harder, and China sank deeper into pessimism, frustration, and apathy. The in­ tellectual climate and moral tone of the Mongol era in China cannot be described in greater detail here,1 but must be kept in mind; they are essential to an understanding of w hat follows. VARIETIES OF EREMITISM

Even in the Yiian period some persons remained zealously devoted to Confucian ideals—to an active life in the service of the Yiian, and to heroism as Confucianism defined it. Far more of the literate turned in despair to the other extreme: to various forms of escapism, and fin de siècle frivolity. There is a third group which renounced both state serv­ ice and extreme self-indulgence and chose instead some variety of with­ drawal. Recluses, or hermits, are often called yin-i in historical writings, and usually referred to themselves as cKu-shih or chii-shih. All these terms are customarily translated “recluse” or “hermit”; in Chinese society they signified withdrawal from the active public life in the service of society that Confucian ethics prescribed as the most suitable course for all whose abilities, cultivation, and learning qualified them for it. To bar one’s gates and earn one’s own living without reliance on the emolument of office, to display a lack of regard for the social status which could be attained only by entering officialdom, and to devote one’s life to selfcultivation, scholarship or artistic pursuits made one a recluse. By the mores of Confucian society, this was a step which set one apart, which justified the special appellation. The distance to which one withdrew, the firmness with which one barred the gate, and the seriousness with which one cultivated oneself all adm itted of wide variations, even among those whose motivations in withdrawing were sincere. (W e are not concerned here with the many who became recluses when it suited their purpose to do so, and returned to public life at their convenience. ) The variations, however, were of only secondary importance; the degree of a man’s commitment to withdrawal had no effect on his status. It was the renunciation of

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office-holding—either at the outset or after a period of public life—that defined the recluse. Nemoto Makoto s recent book, “The Spirit of Resistance in Authori­ tarian Society: A Study of Chinese Eremitism,” is the first full-scale study of the recluse in Chinese civilization, and more particularly in the “middle period” of imperial history.2 Nemoto sees eremitism, especially the kind suggested by the title of his book, as a reflection of some of the deepest problems afflicting authoritarian society. He is at his best in describing the special character of Chinese eremitism, its contrast with Indian and Christian European eremitism, and the relation of the Chi­ nese recluse to the rest of Chinese society. He describes well the sig­ nificance of the renunciation of the official life, which as we have seen is the keystone of Chinese eremitism, and which distinguishes it from the connotations of the word in other civilizations (e.g., religion, soli­ tude, eccentricity) and also from the really unrelated general problem of Buddhist monasticism in China. This is not to imply that Buddhist eremitism is altogether foreign to our subject Actually, some potential scholar-officials did become Bud­ dhist or Taoist, rather than Confucian, recluses. The three types of eremitism, although distinct in character, are all more or less congenial to each other. The Buddhist, for example, may have become a monk, or may merely have become a lay-associate ( chii-shih also has the spe­ cific meaning of a Buddhist lay-associate who has taken certain vows; both this meaning and that of a non-Buddhist recluse were and still are current for the term ). The Buddhist recluse might continue to live with his family in normal conjugal life, or he might withdraw to celibacy and seclusion. In most cases we may assume that Buddhist thought had an intellectual appeal, and that the Buddhist literatus-recluse retained the respect and the acquaintance of his non-Buddhist friends. Such learned Buddhists, both monks and lay-associates, some of them as famous as their more worldly friends in the fields of poetry, painting, literature, and scholarship, are known in all ages, and were particularly numerous in the Yiian period. The Taoist recluse likewise may have taken up the dress and hairdo of the professed Taoist adept, or may have maintained a looser con­ nection with religious and popular Taoism. In either case he typically withdrew to a rural place, had a small following of apprentices, and prac­ ticed some more-or-less obscure Taoist art such as medicine or alchemy. He was likely to be at least slightly eccentric, if not awesomely un­ fathomable, but usually not to the point of losing the respect of the con­ ventional intellectual community on whose fringes he lived. It is the Confucian recluse, however, who interests us the most.

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Usually he was less cut off from the normal pattern of life in society than the Buddhist or the Taoist. H e cultivated nothing as metaphysically profound as Buddhism, or as mysteriously incommunicable as Taoism. If, beyond literature and the arts, he cultivated anything in the realm of the spirit, it was Confucian thought, which—unless one becomes w rapped up in the study of the I-ching—cannot take one far from the everyday world of man. H e m ight indeed be somewhat eccentric, or he m ight be simply w hat we would call a retired gentleman of leisure, perhaps even one of great means living in elegant fashion. More often he was a man of modest means, living by teaching or working his own land, or a scholar living in poverty. The Confucian recluse m ight double as a devotee of the poetry-and-wine type of escapism; the serious life is not demanded of him, although it is more common. These various types of recluse, including the Buddhist and Taoist, had only one thing in common: they had withdrawn voluntarily from active participation in public life. Although the pattern of the recluse has existed for millennia in China, it became an alternative way of life of particular importance in times of disorder and impending doom, when thoughtful pessimism seemed more attractive to educated men than the normal pattern of life. The Yiian period was preem inently such an age. Many of the Yiian literati, we m ust presume, w anted office. Some would have accepted it but lacked ambition or energy; some did accept it and served the dynasty, even loyally. For the many who did not obtain office, the pose of a righteous indifference may have been an easy solace. But there can be little doubt that, for an im portant and influential num­ ber, withdrawal was genuine—an honest expression of protest prompted by their Confucian ideals. But were there no literati who were neither recluses, nor scholarofficials loyal to the Yiian, nor passive idlers—no group, however small, who saw the inevitability of the Yiian dynasty’s downfall and actively sought to hasten it? In the last generation of Yiian rule it is possible to discern the outlines of such a group. Dissociation with Mongol inter­ ests usually was their first step. Some merely became recluses, or schol­ ars in retirem ent, who thought and sometimes wrote about social and political problems of their age, awaiting opportunities to become active. Some participated in the creation of local or regional forces which as­ sumed some governmental responsibilities, b u t which made no open break w ith Yiian rule. Others lived by choice in territories under rebel rule, waiting to evaluate the rebellion’s chances of success before openly joining iV-but in their own minds condoning rebellion. Still others ( few until the very end) openly served rebellious movements, movements

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which originated with and represented non-literati social forces but which could not begin to function on the level of government without the technical assistance of the literati. It must be emphasized, how­ ever, that activists and potential activists of this sort were few, scattered, and without much influence. The vast majority of the literate remained passively loyal to Yüan rule, and most of the educated members of so­ ciety hoped for nothing more than improvement in the effectiveness of the legitimate government and a restoration of social order. THE ORIGINS OF CONFUCIAN EREMITISM

Confucianism is normally and properly associated with the ideology of participation, of public service. In fact, however, there is an equally valid aspect of Confucianism, apparent in the thought of Confucius and Mencius, which justifies withdrawal from public life and official service under some conditions. W ithdrawal is not to be preferred to the active life: it is not to be regarded (as by Taoism) as intrinsically valuable; but in some circumstances it is necessary and laudable. To Confucius and Mencius it was clear that a man should serve when he could main­ tain and actively promote his principles, and that he should withdraw when the conditions of public service were degrading, or when his prin­ ciples were threatened. A man’s personal ethical standards were to determine the decision. It is a commonplace that this early Confucian thought is often at variance, in matters of specific detail and in tone and emphasis, with the "imperial Confucianism” of the Han and subsequent ages. The reasons for this are clear: the political and social realities of an authoritarian state could scarcely have been fully anticipated by Confucius and Men­ cius, two unemployed thinkers reflecting on an age of decaying feudal­ ism. There are significant differences even between Confucius and Mencius, and still greater ones between Mencius and Hsiin-tzu, re­ flecting both the development of Confucian thought and the changing conditions of successive ages. If early Confucian thought had not cen­ tered so heavily on the ethics of political and social situations, the everchanging conditions of the political and social worlds would have borne less relevance to it, and the discrepancies between earlier and later Confucianism might have figured less importantly in the history of Chinese thought. If, for example, Confucius had been concerned pri­ marily with religious or metaphysical concepts, his followers in later ages would have had less trouble adjusting to changing times, for they would have felt less compelled to become involved in government and practical affairs. But Confucianism, by its nature, demands action, or

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at least commitment. Moreover, there exists within it the roots of pos­ sible tension between the individual's observance of his ethical stand­ ards and the demands of society and state. To Confucius and Mencius, it was comparatively easy to draw the line between when a man should serve and when he should not, although in fact both were criticized by some of their own followers for apparent inconsistencies in such deci­ sions. But, Confucius and Mencius discussed the motives of men who did or did not serve, and fixed their evaluations of them accordingly. Often those who did not serve received high praise. Hsiin-tzu, as m ight be expected, was harder on the recluse. Although a Confucian and a believer in the ethical foundations of society, in his insistence on the im portance of ruler and state, he left little room for a man to m aintain any private and personal moral standards that might under any circumstances conflict with the primary duty of serving the ruler. The later Legalists, among them especially Hsün-tzu s pupil Han Fei-tzu, were still more severe. Legalist writers pronounced the herm it guilty of a crime meriting death; in his eremitism he was "ungovernable" and "disloyal,” and his existence could not be tolerated by the authori­ tarian state. Legalist principles and practices exerted a significant influence on tiie character of im perial Confucianism. In fact, during the formative Han period Legalist and Confucian principles were in some measure mixed and blended together; the resulting amalgam, though it continued to be called Confucianism, was not the Confucianism of old. Fung Yulan, adopting the terminology of William James, refers to the m aterial­ istic, realistic Hsiintzian trend in Confucianism as the "tough-minded” side of it, as opposed to the "tender-minded” idealism of the Mencian tradition, and he sees the dominant Ch eng-Chu school of Neo-Confucianism as the heir to the tough-minded tradition.* Eremitism fared better with the tender-minded. It is clear that eremitism of all kinds was tolerated to a much greater degree in earlier history, and in particular that the nobly motivated eremitism of the un­ compromising man of principle was highly praised.4 Gradually, in the early im perial period, it lost favor, perhaps in part because it was asso­ ciated with tiie religious eremitism of Taoism and Buddhism, but pri­ marily, it would seem, because of the increasingly authoritarian charac­ ter of the state. Devaluing eremitism m eant reinterpreting the words of Confucius and Mencius, and a perhaps unconscious acceptance of the attitudes of Hsün-tzu. Even the Neo-Confucianists, who ostensibly ranked Men­ cius highest among the followers of the Sage, bowed to this necessity. As Hsiao Kung-ch’üan has pointed out, the Sung Neo-Confucianists held

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the very un-Mencian idea that the servitor had the duty of absolute and unswerving loyalty to the ruler and his dynasty, even at the price of death or forced retirem ent Moreover, they held this principle to be based on the teachings of Confucius himself, despite certain explicitly contradictory teachings of Confucius and Mencius.' Living in an age when the need to strengthen the state was apparent, they came to look upon even the most idealistically motivated refusal to serve the state as morally suspect Ultimately they demanded absolute loyalty to the ruler and his dynasty, and looked upon one man’s successive service to two ru lin g houses as being incompatible with morality. On the one hand, refusal to serve in ordinary times came almost to imply sedition; on the other, willingness to serve a new dynasty after serving the old implied moral degeneracy. From various kinds of evidence, but in particular from that found in the dynastic histories, it becomes clear that the concept of Confuciansanctioned eremitism underwent a remarkable transformation, the re­ sults of which can be seen most clearly with the emergence of NeoConfucianism in the Sung period. Two kinds of Confucian eremitism, distinct in character and very differently evaluated, had come into being. One of these I will call "compulsory” eremitism. It was imposed as a moral duty in the name of chung, or loyalty, and theoretically it was binding on all servitors of a fallen dynasty. Its usefulness to the holders of power was so great that even newly founded dynasties, which suf­ fered from it during the first years of their rule, nonetheless promoted and praised i t They even honored those who practiced it against them, and have been known to censure those who did n o t4 The roots of this kind of eremitism do not go deeply into the thought of Confucius and Mencius, where in fact its ideological foundations are at least implicitly denied, but stems from Hsiin-tzu and the Legalists. And it did not assume its later significance until Neo-Confucian thought promoted a new concept of loyalty consonant with its exaltation of the ruler and the state. The second I shall call “voluntary” eremitism. It has valid roots in the thought of early Confucianism. However, by Sung and Yiian times it was slightly stressed if at all, and where mentioned in the official his­ tories, greatly de-emphasized. No work of the time known to me contains an explicit statement of the two aspects of eremitism, the one compulsory and approved of, and the other voluntary and of doubtful worth. Only the Hsin Yiian Shih, a product of the early twentieth century, views the eremitism of the Yiian period with this division in mind, albeit without reference to its philosophical and historical implications.7 Yet both the division and its

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implications are clearly reflected in the writings of the men of the time, especially those who practiced some form of eremitism, as we shall see in the following pages. VOLUNTARY EREMITISM OF PROTEST

Refusal to serve on moral grounds is clearly an expression of pro­ test against impossible conditions of service, and more or less directly a protest against the ruler and his government. Eremitism so motivated is essentially voluntary, for although a person may feel morally com­ pelled to refuse to serve, the problem of recognizing the evil conditions is his individual problem; his decision is a m atter of his own conscience and is m ade on his own initiative, commonly in the teeth of personal and social pressures. A decision to withdraw usually led to hardship, and sometimes, when it was irritating to a jealous tyrant, to danger. To most of the recluse's contemporaries, even to his own family, it m ight well appear foolish, impractical, eccentric. Nemoto notes that honor and praise were accorded such hermits, because their eremitism was vaguely felt to be an expression of the otherwise unarticulated feelings of protest and of resistance th at authoritarianism engendered in society. This to a certain extent must have been true, and personal satisfaction was an additional compensation. But to most recluses, these compensations m ust have appeared less than adequate for the sacrifice of the official career, the career their society valued above all others. On the one hand, Confucian ethics put the highest possible premium on the m aintenance of ethical standards; on the other, they demanded th at a man serve society, not only for social b u t also for family reasons. A man should achieve prominence for the sake of the family name and fame, to win respect and honor ( in some instances, posthumous ranks and titles) for his ancestors, and for the m aterial benefit of his living parents and family members. To many persons these noble-sounding reasons may have carried less weight than baser motives, such as the lust for power and wealth, b u t that is inconsequential. The im portant thing is th at such Confucian principles existed, and strengthened the demands on men to serve. In this conflict of values, with Confucian principles seemingly supporting either decision, the factors favoring office-holding were real, positive, practical, and immediate. Those favor­ ing w ithdraw al were abstract, negative, difficult to maintain and to defend. Thus a kind of open choice remained. It is for this reason that I call this kind of eremitism "voluntary” and Nemoto refers to it as "sub­ jectively determined.”8 Evidence of the Neo-Confucian impatience with dissent can be traced in historiography, and particularly in the historical writings of

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Ou-yang Hsiu, who did more to form the intellectual and ethical stand­ ards of the Sung period than any other figure of his time. Ou-yang used history as Confucius had used it in editing the Spring and Autumn Annals, to promote morality by praising the good and blaming the un­ worthy. The influence of his historiography on the writing of history in the Yiian and Ming periods (particularly the official dynastic his­ tories) was enormous. In his W u-tai Shih Chi (“Historian’s Record of die Five Dynasties”), Ou-yang departs from several precedents of historiography, among them the precedent of including a chapter devoted to biographies of recluses. He confines himself to commenting on certain aspects of eremitism of which he approved, thereby avoiding any all-inclusive approval of the concept of withdrawal, and particularly of the eremitism of protest He mentions noble scholars who withdrew from public service in the chaotic and degenerate times of the Five Dynasties, to be sure, but he dis­ cusses them in his introduction to the chapter of biographies of persons of “singular conduct” (“I-hsing Lieh-chuan,” ch. 34)—his version of the “Tu-hsing” ( “unique conduct” ) or “Cho-hsing” ( “extraordinary con­ duct” ) chapters of earlier historiography whose subjects were men of heroic virtue, and characteristically martyrs, often in the public service. The implication is that voluntary eremitism is commendable only when it becomes extraordinary, and that even at its most commendable it is merely one kind of extraordinary devotion to moral principles. Ouyang’s recluses, moreover, are by no means typical of the Confucian literati patterns. Two are Taoist adepts, one is a military man who sacri­ ficed his life in blind loyalty to an unworthy ruler, and one is presented as an extraordinary example of filial piety. Only one is a Confucian scholar-official who refused to continue to serve under humiliating con­ ditions. The pattern is fairly clear. Ou-yang wished to devalue the behavior of the recluse. In his mind it was possible to justify voluntary eremitism only as one of the varieties of extraordinary conduct, and even then as something possible only in the most degenerate of ages. By merging it with extreme acts of devotion to other specific moral principles, such as filial piety, he sought to gloss over its political significance. By group­ ing true recluses with Taoist adepts, he sought to dim the luster of eremitism for the Confucian literati. His introduction to chüan 34 reads in part as follows: Alas! The Five Dynasties period reached the extreme limits of chaos. It was a period like that referred to in the [I-ching, Wen-yen] chuan, where it states: “Heaven and Earth are closed; the worthy man withdraws.” It was an age when servitors murdered their rulers, sons killed their fathers, and scholar-

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officials of high rank and position placidly accepted their emolument and took their places at court, unabashed and with no appearance of integrity or shame. All were thusl I have always said that, since antiquity, loyal servitors and righteous schol­ ars have appeared in large numbers in times of disorder, yet I am surprised that, in that age, those who merit mention are so few. It cannot be that there really were no such persons. Even when we grant that warfare had arisen and schools had been destroyed, so that propriety and righteousness were in decline and the people’s practices had degenerated accordingly, yet never in history has there been a time when in all the world there were no worthy men. I mean that there must have been upright and uncom prom ising scholars who resented their world and kept themselves far distant from it, and thereby became lost to our view. Since antiquity there always have been able and worthy men who have cherished their noble principles within and not made them visible without, living in poverty in lowly lanes or hiding themselves in the wilds. Even such a man as Yen Hui would not have become known if he had not met Confucius. How much more likely it is that such a man should remain unknown in an age of decline and disorder, when the tao of the supe­ rior man was on the wane. Therefore I maintain that there must have been able and upright persons who simply sank out of sight, disappearing so com­ pletely that we can know nothing of them. When we seek for them in the records and annals, we find that the written records of that age of chaos and collapse are scanty and incomplete, and such persons are not recoverable. Thus I have have been able to find only four or five such persons . . . H ere the “loyal servitor” and the “righteous scholar” are discussed to­ gether. To be sure, “worthy men who withdraw into seclusion” are praised, and unworthy men who serve in office, condoning if not com­ m itting crimes of regicide and parricide, are scorned. But the outlines of the concept of voluntary Confucian eremitism are somewhat blurred by subsuming it under the more general rubric of “singular conduct”; and the scope of its application has been greatly narrowed to times that m erit total condemnation. The decision to withdraw, as praised by Ou-yang Hsiu, is less a personal one, less a m atter of individual choice; it is one that objective conditions make necessary, without reference to a man’s private ethical standards. Significantly, the recluse is warned that probable obscurity will be his only rew ard for withdrawing from the world. In all ways the value of the independent act of protest is deemphasized, and its clear definition is obscured. Nonetheless, Ou-yang preserved a certain indestructible basis for withdrawal to which the voluntary recluse of the Yiian dynasty could still appeal. He could not proclaim himself a righteous recluse without tak­ ing a stand openly inimical to the authority of the state and the person of the ruler, b u t he was fairly safe if he limited his protest to veiled sentiment and indirect expression. In the Yiian dynasty the recluse was

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actually safer than in the following two dynasties, because of the wall that separated the Chinese people from the alien court, and die lack of dose communication and real concern from the one side of that wall to the other. People could say with impunity in the Yüan period things that it would have cost them their lives merely to hint at under Ming Tai-tsu. But even so, after the passage of seven centuries, the rediscov­ ery of the true feelings of a recluse of the time is no simple, straightfor­ ward matter. With this background in mind, we shall now consider a representa­ tive reduse of the Yüan period, Liu Yin. LIU YIN AND EREMITISM

Liu Yin ( 1249-93 ) was one of the most eminent scholars and teachers of the age of Kubilai Khan. His biography in the Yuan Shih• tells us that he was a native of Jung-ch’eng in Pao-ting prefecture, in what would be modem Hopei, and that his forebears for generations had been scholars. His father, Liu Shu, is described as a scholarly, unambitious man who refused an appointment to a magistracy in a nearby prefec­ ture on the excuse of illness. According to the Yuan Shih: At the age of forty, he still had no son. He sighed: “If Heaven indeed causes me to have no son, so be it. But should I have a son, I would surely make him a scholar.” On the evening when Yin was bom, Shu had a dream in which a divine being came riding a horse and bearing a child to his house, saying to him; "Rear him welll” When Shu awoke, Yin was bom. Such circumstances surrounding the birth of talented persons are com­ mon enough, as are the descriptions of Liu Yin’s youthful precosity. Perhaps we cannot take too literally the statement that at the age of two or three . . . he could recognize characters, and each day could memorize passages of a hundred or a thousand characters. He need pass his eyes over something but once to memorize it. At the age of five he could write poetry and at six prose. Whenever he set his pen to paper he amazed people by what he pro­ duced. By the time he reached the age of twenty his genius had fully flowered. Liu Yin, beyond doubt, was a brilliant young scholar of whom great things were expected. His father was a student of the Neo-Confucian theories of human nature, and Liu Yin also studied near his own home under Yen Mi-chien (ca. 1204-ca. 1281), a southern scholar who had been brought to the North during the conquest of the South. Liu Yin is said to have been impatient with mere lexical and philological studies of the exegetical works, wanting to know the “true essence of the Sages* teachings.” The Sung-yiian Hsiieh-an, both in the biography of Liu Yin

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and in th at of Yao Shu, makes it clear that Liu felt he had really en­ countered tiie new Sung learning only when he went to Mount Su-men in Honan to study under Yao Shu.10 This is w hat his biography in the Yiian Shih is referring to when it states: Subsequently, when he encountered the writings of Chou Tun-i, Ch’eng I, Chang Tsai, Shao Yung, Chu Hsi, and Lii Tsu-ch’ien, he was able to expound their subtleties on first reading. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “I always said that this must exist!” Commenting on the best points of each, he said: “Shao is the most comprehensive, Chou the most intensive, and Ch’eng the most correct Master Chu achieved the limit in comprehensiveness, exhausted intensiveness, and made it all concrete with correctness.” His insigh t and profound per­ ception were customarily of this order. Struck w ith adm iration for Chu-ko Liang’s ( a .d . 181-234) phrase “Quies­ cence wherewith to cultivate the self,” he adopted the name Chinghsiu or “Quiescent Cultivation” for his studio. This well suits the de­ scription of his personality given in his biography: By nature Liu Yin was not gregarious; he did not enter lightly into association with other people. Although his family was very poor, he would accept noth­ ing if it did not accord with his principles. He lived at home and taught there, maintaining rigid observance of the teacher’s role. Students who came to him were taught in accordance with their native abilities, and all showed progress. High officials in great number passed through Pao-ting and hearing of Liu Yin’s fame, often went to call on him. Yin usually hid himself and would not come forth to meet them. People who did not know him took this for arro­ gance . . . Liu Yin had no son and heir. H e died at the early age of 45 sui in the summer of 1293, probably at home and of some illness. These scanty biographical data include very little that contributes to our understanding of Liu Yin as a recluse. For this we must turn to his own writings. A preface by the late sixteenth century w riter Shao Pao to a reprinting of Liu’s works11 states that in Liu’s essay “ H si Sheng’ chieh” ( “An Explanation of ‘Aspiring to Become a Sage’” ), w ritten when he was only eighteen, “his purpose in life is already more or less ap p aren t” A partial translation of it follows: It was the year ting-mao [1267], at the end of the . . . month. The autumn scene was as if freshly bathed. The Milky Way was bright and sparkling white. Heaven was high and the air clear. All life was at rest At that time I, Liu Yin of I-ch’uan, was sitting in my central court. I had a goblet of wine, but on drinking i t I found it tasteless. I had a lute, but when I strummed i t no music came forth. I had a book, from the hand of Master Chou Tun-i. Called the I-t’ung, it is subtle of meaning and difficult to grasp. Looking aloft seeking its meaning, I found it as lofty as the blue Heavens. Taking it up again to pursue its ideas, I found it as deep as the Yellow Springs. So I took it up and read it under the stars and moon, until I came to the

FREDERICK W. MOTE 264 sentence: “The scholar aspires to become a Worthy, the Worthy aspires to become a Sage, the Sage aspires to become Heaven.” This 1 could not cornprehend, and I said with a sigh: "What vacuous wordsl How vast and allenfolding is Heaven, that lofty intelligence, that divine wisdom. Who can aspire to that? Does this not deceive us who belong to later ages? How vacuous are these words!” Then I hummed a poem to the pure wind, and enjoyed the bright moonlight. I grasped at Existence, and drank of the Great Harmony. I chanted the words of die song “T’ai Ku Ts’ang Lang” [“How Vast and Empty the Primordial Beginnings”]. I raised my head to Heaven and whistled; I sighed as 1 sang: “How pure is the Great Void, wherein life dwells! How brilliant is the Great Source, wherein the power of creation is lodged! The Emperor Fu-hsi is remote; whom shall I acknowledge my sover­ eign? The age of Confucius is far away; whom shall I take as my guide and companion?” So I hummed and chanted unceasingly. I sat and dozed, and only after a long time again arose, when suddenly my courtyard was over­ whelmed with an auspicious air; I seemed to hear the sound of feet on the steps, and when I looked about, saw three old men. . . . [In his dream Liu converses with the three old men, who identify themselves metaphorically as the forces governing the universe. They discuss philosophical concepts, and one of the three asks Liu why he doubted the validity of the sentence of Chou’s 1-t’ung, claiming it as his own words. This dialogue follows; Liu speaks:] I replied to him, asking, “Can Sagehood then be aspired to?” He answered, “It can.” “Is there some important prerequisite for attaining it?” He replied, “There is.” I asked him what this was, and he replied, “The important thing is singleness.” “What is singleness?” He said, “It is the absence of desire.” When I asked who can be without desire, he replied, “All the people in the world can be without desire.” Then I asked if all the people in the world could not become Sages, and he replied. “They can.” "In that case, this student’s confusion of mind is great indeed, and I do not understand you.” The master said: “Sit down. I shall discuss it with you. You have heard that in all of Heaven and Earth, there is but one Principle [ft] and nothing else, and through interactions it dispersed to become all things. In the end, it again comes together, again becoming one principle. Heaven and Earth are man, man is Heaven and Earth. Sages and Worthies are I, I am the Sages and Worthies. That of li which is present in man is perfect and penetrable. That of li which material things receive is imperfect and nonpenetrable. Be­ ing imperfect and nonpenetrable, there is no way by which it can be trans­ formed. But in the case of man, the perfect and the all-penetrable can indeed be penetrated. Then what can it not achieve? “The Sage aspires to be as Heaven. When he succeeds, he becomes one with Heaven; when he does not succeed, he is a Great Sage. The Worthy aspires to be a Sage. Surpassing that, he becomes one with Heaven; not achieving it, he is a Great Worthy. The Scholar aspires to become a Worthy. Surpassing that, he becomes a Sage; not achieving it, he still does not fail to become a man of renown. This is what makes a Sage a Sage, and what makes a Worthy a Worthy. You have been given a nature midway between Heaven and Earth, and are endowed with a physical nature that is blemish-free and submissive to the Five Constants. Your nature is the same substance of which the Sage is made; the teachings you study are the same as that which constitute the Sage’s achievement. You are the same as the Sages; the Sages

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are the same as you. You would challenge this, at the same time thinking my words vacuous. Are you vacuous? Or is your teacher vacuous? If you pursue self-cultivation to achieve quiescence, exert yourself to achieve tran­ quillity, satisfy the design of your bodily organization, and fulfill your nature, from die level of mere thought you will proceed to that of divine wisdom. Being enlightened, you will possess sincerity. Do you aspire to be a Sage, or do the Sages aspire to be you? You would cast this truth aside, thinking I have cheated you! Do you cheat your teacher? Or does your teacher cheat you?” . . . [At this, Liu confesses his stupidity and his stubborn foolishness, and humbly thanks the divine visitor for his instruction. As the three take leave of him, they pat his shoulder and say encouragingly:] “Apply yourself diligendy. There will come a day when we shall hear of a man of purity in the world; and that man will be you.”12 Dominant in this interesting essay is the idea, stressed by Mencius, that anyone who works hard enough at perfecting his basically good nature can become a Sage or a W orthy. More immediately, Liu takes his language and concepts from Chou Tun-i’s (1017-73) I-t’ung (also known as the Tung-shu ), or “Explanatory Text on the Book of Changes.”13 Liu's presentation of these concepts is somewhat naïve and impressionistic, evidence of his youth and also perhaps of the primitive state of philosophic and scholarly studies in the Mongol-ruled North China of that time. Of greatest interest to us, however, is the three sages' encouraging prediction that Liu will become known as a man of purity ( ch’ing-ts’ai ), and that he applies to himself here this term that Confu­ cius reserved for two praiseworthy recluses : “It may be said of Yii-chung and Li-i that while they hid themselves in their seclusion, they gave a license to their words; but in their persons they succeeded in preserving their purity, and in their retirement they acted according to the exigency of the times.”14 At this age Liu did not regard purity and the official career as neces­ sarily incompatible. In fact, many of his poems show that his devotion to purity complemented his natural desire to seek fame as a scholar and a w riter and to win high position in recognition of his undoubted talents. An example is an undated poem called “Overcome with Thoughts on an Autumn Evening,”15 the second half of which reads: In this life, the years of youth Are so fleeting. How sad it is! Beside the humble scholar's window, when one is old— How petty that life; what good comes of it? Learn sw ordsmanship , and win with it a princedom! With martial valor face every enemy. If man's ambition is to serve men, What use has this devotion to book and sword? 'My mind is bright and clear, It holds within it ways to rule the world in peace.

266

FREDERICK W. MOTE If someday I encounter recognition and opportunity. And on all sides worthy routes open, I shall mount to the highest power and rank. Soaring aloft, borne up by strong wings.1# I shall bring all the universe to order. Thereby establishing my name for a thousand years.

Many of these sentiments are radier conventional clichés, but die mes­ sage is clear and forceful. The sword and the book, representing ability in war and peace, symbolized the ambitious young Confucian scholar’s equipment and aspirations. But Liu has a mind of a higher order, enough so that sword and book are no longer needed. He feels he can "conquer the world” without sword and book, and speaks of his great ambition. He implies, however, that the times are not auspicious, and says that he must wait for “worthy routes” to open to him. His attitude toward eremitism is set forth rather explicidy in his brief essay “An Explanation of the Sui-ch u [“Following the Original”] Pavilion”:17 The original mind of the superior man is to do good, and not to do evil; it is to be a superior man, and not to be a petty man. This is all there is to the matter. If a person acts in a way that is good, and does what the superior man does, then his original mind has been followed [i.e., fulfilled]. For too is everlasting and omnipresent. Hence if one wants to do what is good and be a superior man, there is no time or place in which one cannot do so. Hence there is no time and no place in which our original natures cannot be followed. Suppose that one were to say: “My original mind-nature is to go forth and devote myself to the affairs of the world. If the times do not permit this to me, then throughout my life I shall not succeed in following my original mind-nature.” That would be to say that tao is all on the side of coming forth to serve, and that withdrawal is in no sense ethically permissible. Suppose that one were to say: “My original mind-nature demands that I withdraw and follow my own interests. If the times do not give me freedom for this, then throughout my life I shall not succeed in following my original mind-nature.” That would be to say that tao is all on the side of withdrawal, and that there is nothing to be said for the life of active service. Is tao in truth like that? The chan-shih,18 Mr. Chang Tzu-yu, is a man whose mind I know most intimately. He is a man who takes delight in doing what is good, and whose only fear is that he will not act as a superior man should. Recently he has built a pavilion to which he has given the name “Following the Original.” His inclination is to enjoy ease and to pursue his own interests. Yet the gentle­ men who have composed poems and essays about his pavilion have all stressed that since he is a man of whom great things can be expected, and since he is greatly endowed with talent and learning, he should devote himself to assist­ ing the state and succoring humanity. Both are wrong. His ideal principles lead him to leisurely pursuit of his interests, yet the times demand assistance and succor. Both are things of

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which we can approve. Yet, of his original nature, we cannot say that it has predetermined him to either of these before it can be said to have been fol­ lowed. If his nature is thus—and nothing is beyond the scope of man's naturethen it is because he has sequestered himself in a sheltered corner. For too is by nature omnipresent, and when it is forcibly confined to one small area, the harmful consequences can be great. If Chang Tzu-yu will thinlr about my words, he will eventually understand my meaning. Written in the year jen-cKen of the reign period chih~yüan (1292), by Liu Yin. Liu s friend Chang not only refuses to serve, but evidently refuses to take a broad interest in life and current problems as well. He has re­ turned to his villa and built his Sui-ch u pavilion to proclaim to the world that it is in keeping with his original nature to withdraw. Liu writes this essay not to urge him to come forth and serve, but to correct his thinking. Chang's attitude smacks of Taoism; Liu provides a Con­ fucian corrective. He says, in essence, w hat Confucius m eant when he stated that there was nothing for which he is predeterm ined and nothing against which he is predeterm ined. Liu wrote this in 1292, shortly be­ fore his death, and after repeatedly refusing calls to office. Clearly, then, Liu himself does not regard withdrawal as intrinsically superior to active service. There is another reason. The same attitude toward office-holding is presented, though from a slightly different angle, in a very brief essay called “An Explanation of the Tao-kuei [“Tao-noble”] Hall.” The circumstances are similar: a friend has nam ed a hall in his home and has asked Liu for an essay explaining the name. The name comes from a poem by Shao Yung (1011-77), an outstanding Neo-Confucian of the Northern Sung who never held any office, who lived an idyllic if austerely simple life, and who was a fine poet. Liu evidently adm ired Shao Yung and felt close in spirit to him; his works contain frequent references to Shao's writ­ ings. In this brief essay he is as concerned about representing Shao's idea correctly as he is about gratifying his friend. He writes: In Shao K'ang-chieh's poetry we find: “Though lacking office, he is of himself lofty; But how could one lack too, and be of himself noble!” This is not intended to relate too to office, but rather is to say that die presence of too is not to be decided in terms of whether or not one holds office. If one were to understand too and office as correlative, then the meaning of the two lines would be shallow and narrow, forced and strained. Not only would this interpretation display lack of knowledge of what it is that makes too tibe too, it also would display envy for superficial externals, and would be too full of errors for me to name them all. Mr. Li of Ho-chien has taken words from Shao’s poetry as a name for his study, calling it Tao-kuei and has asked me to write an explanation of it, hence this.19

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Too here, as in the last essay quoted, means ethical principles. There are two ideas here: first, that there is no necessary correlation between the ethical evaluation of a man and the kind of a career he follows; second, that a man who lacks ethical principles is not a laudable person regardless of his career and status. Office-holding, then, can be a good thing, but it is not the greatest good thing in the world, and it confers no glory on a man with moral deficiencies. Liu was not of course admitting moral deficiencies in him­ self. On the contrary, as he saw it, the chief threat to ethical principles in his time lay precisely in office-holding; hence his consistent refusal to hold office. This was undoubtedly his reasoning when he chided his contemporary, Hsü Heng, for his alacrity in accepting appointment to office.20 When Hsii replied that unless one were eager to serve the state one could not serve the tao, Liu remarked that to serve the state was to fail to show proper respect for the tao. Liu could have held any kind of office he might have wanted. He was offered very high and honorable positions in the Confucian Acad­ emy and the Chi-hsien Yiian (roughly equivalent to the Han-lin), and educational posts. His letter to the government official who recom­ mended him for office the last time, in 1291, is included in his biography in the Yuan Shih presumably as being a work representative of his character. It reads, in part: I have since my early youth been engaged in study, and thus have acquired some knowledge of the discourses of great persons and superior men. Though I may have learned nothing else, I can say that at least I have a very clear and thorough conception of what is meant by the moral principle of “the duties that should be observed between ruler and minister.”21 Nor need the general meaning of this be discussed; let me rather talk only in terms of its daily application in actual affairs. For by whose power do all of us of the people have the opportunity to live in peace and plenty, and thus to multiply and prosper in happiness? This is all bestowed by our ruler. And accordingly all of us who live must give either of our strength or our knowledge and abilities, but in any event each must contribute something in order to discharge his responsibility. The truth of this principle is obvious: from the most ancient times it has been unvaryingly so. This is what Chuang Chou meant when he said that "There is no escaping [the duties that should be observed between sovereign and minister] anywhere in the whole wide world.”22 I have lived forty-three years, and have not yet contributed the least bit of my strength toward repaying the nation’s beneficence to me in nurturing and sustaining me. Moreover, the imperial grace has repeatedly favored me with appoint­ ments to office. Could I dare to secrete myself and not come forth to serve, to court a reputation for lofty nobility as a form of self-indulgence, thereby repudiating my nation’s gracious favor in recognizing me, and still have re­ ceived the most excellent and righteous teaching of the Sage? On the con­ trary, from my early youth onward, in my mind I have never for even one

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day dared to be in any way aloof and superior, eccentric or deviant from the usual course. All my friends, if they know me at all, know that this is the true state of my mind. However, it may be that rumors exist about me which fail to represent the truth of the case. Seeing only what my actions might seem to indicate, some have labeled me a proud and lofty recluse. However, you, sir, know that I have never so considered myself. Please permit me to explain the circumstances of my repeated refusals to serve item by item . . . [There follows a detailed résumé of his illnesses, the illness and death of his mother, and the like.] I am in truth a most remote and humble servitor. My case is different from that of the many gentlemen who hold office, for their coming to accept office and retirement from it seems to present no difficult problems for them. I am always dependent on your excellency’s assistance to me.28 This letter was addressed to an unnamed chief minister who had been responsible for recommending Liu’s appointment. It was not a simple m atter to decline such an appointment; the government of Kubilai Khan had been known to bring persons forcibly to the capital, and it m ight not accept mere disinclination to serve without satisfactory reasons. Liu’s closing sentence is an appeal for assistance in prevailing upon the court to accept his refusal. The court did not subject Liu to further pressure to serve, and the Emperor Kubilai Khan on hearing of the m atter is said to have remarked: “In antiquity there were the so-called ‘servitors who could not be summoned.’ They must have been of the same type as this person!” The remark about servitors who cannot be summoned, of course, is a reference to Mencius. Liu was forced to counter rumors that he was arrogant and critical of the government; his illness at the time was prob­ ably real, but it was not the real reason for his refusal. The real reason was known to Kubilai Khan, for in using Mencius’ phrase he must have been conscious of the context in which Mencius used it. The passage reads: Mencius said: “. . . The philosopher Tseng-tzu said, The wealth of Ch’in and Ch’u cannot be equaled. Let their rulers have their wealth—I have my benevolence. Let them have their nobility—I have my righteousness. Where­ in should I be dissatisfied as inferior to diem? Now shall we say that these sentiments are not right? Seeing that the philosopher Tseng-tzu said them, there is in them, I apprehend, a real principle. In the Empire there are three things universally acknowledged to be honorable. Nobility [i.e., noble or royal rank] is one of them; age is one of them; virtue is one of them. At the court, nobility holds the first place of the three; in villages, age holds the first place; and for helping one’s generation and presiding over the people, the other two are not equal to virtue. How can one who possesses only one of these presume to despise one who possesses the other two? Therefore a prince who is to accomplish ^reat deeds will certainly have ministers whom he cannot summon. When he wishes to consult with them, he goes to them. The prince who does

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not honor the virtuous, and delight in their ways of doing, to this extent, is not worth having to do with.”24 Mencius here establishes the ideal of the proud and independent scholar, the man of ability and virtue, who sets his own standards for service and who need not consider himself in any way inferior to the ruler him­ self. It is to the credit of Kubilai Khans intelligence that he labeled Liu Yin correctly, and to the credit of his magnanimity that he let the m atter rest with an amused remark, which incidentally contained a gracious compliment to Liu. It should be pointed out that Liu’s refusal to serve did not spring from any sense of loyalty to another dynasty. Liu was bom under Yiian rule. Moreover, he evidently felt no sense of attachm ent to die Sung as a dynasty, to judge from his poems, which include a fu “On the Crossing of the Yangtze” celebrating the progress of the Mongol forces against the collapsing Southern Sung in 1275.25 Much less was he attached to the Chin dynasty, which fell in 1234, fifteen years before his birth.26 On the other hand, that he strongly endorsed the virtue of absolute loyalty to one dynasty is clear from his poem ridiculing Feng Tao, who served four dynasties in succession in the Five Dynasties period. Ou-yang Hsiu’s history of the period, in discussing Feng, served to make him a symbol of the unrighteous servitor wanting in every virtue, but particularly in the virtue of loyalty.27 Liu concurred com­ pletely with this judgment; his four short lines on Feng are even more devastating than Ou-yang s long and vehement discourse.28 Elsewhere, too, Liu shows himself to be completely in harmony with the NeoConfucian concept of loyalty, notably in his admiration for the recluse T ao Yiian-ming (also known as T ao Ch’ien, a .d . 372-427), whose eremitism Liu considered to have been motivated by loyalty to the East­ ern Chin dynasty (317-419).29 LIU YIN AND TAOISM

We have seen that Liu Yin was devoted to the principle of loyalty and all of the Neo-Confucian connotations of the word and that he felt no sense of attachment to any dynasty other than the Yiian. Accordingly, we must look further for a clear expression of his reasons for refusing to serve the Yiian government. It should be clear by now that Liu felt himself to be completely within the Confucian fold, and that Taoism, with its self-centered lack of concern for the world of affairs, could not have appreciably influenced his decision to withdraw. To be sure, there was, and there continued to be, a natural tendency to associate eremitism with Taoism; and later

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writers, seeing Taoist terms used in Liu’s poetry, have accused him of promoting Taoist concepts.80 But if any doubt remains, it is easily dis­ pelled by Liu’s specific and emphatic statements of his attitude toward Taoism. Liu was not bigoted toward Taoism, but he was convinced that it was unreasonable, in some ways fundamentally unethical, and in many ways inferior to the Confucian teachings. In a long essay outlining what a man should study and why it m erited study, Liu mentions the Taoists first under the “various schools of philosophy”: After studying history, one can go on to read the various schools of philosophy. Lao-tzu, Ckuang-tzUy Lieh-tzu, and the Yin-fu Ching31—these four works are all of one kind. Although they are classified as Taoist writings, within them are contained some things which are quite in accord with principle. One does well to take from them merely those things which accord with principle, and ignore their [misleading] metaphors . . .82 Perhaps Liu’s attitude toward Taoism is best seen in his essay on a painting of Chuang-tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly, portions of which follow: Chuang Chou’s theories are a development from those of the Diplomatists.88 They represent the thought of persons whose ambitions have been frustrated by die conditions of their age, and who seek only safety in a world of chaos. Nonetheless his genius was great, and his concepts are very broad. There are persons who cannot be self-sustaining. They see how vast the world is, and how great the span of time from the past to the present. They observe how comprehensive and how abundant are the achievements of the Sages and Worthies, and how tiny and insignificant they themselves are, how they are as if adrift among all the innumerable and modey things of this world for but a brief moment of time. Thus they say “right” and “wrong,” “permissible” and “not permissible,” are things which should be left beyond our concern, while they concern themselves with matters of gain and loss, long life or short. They do not admit the relevance of righteousness to their problems. They fall back on adopting the manners and attitudes of the unlettered com­ mon people, seeking to achieve by this means a kind of temporary security, but they do not achieve it. It is all vague fancy and specious ramblings. They take some real object or event and transfer it to the realm of fantasy, and having achieved a simile, they enlarge on it in the most unrestrained and un­ warranted fashion. Blindly they proclaim themselves to be beyond the present realities of Heaven and earth and all creation. Seen in this light, even though they themselves speak of fantasy, they do not perhaps see wherein the fantasy really lies. It is a fantasy which they do not recognize as fantasy. Hence they can scarcely apprehend what I mean when I speak of “equal­ izing”; they can hardly be expected to fathom what I mean when I speak of “no end that cannot be reached.” What I refer to when I speak of “equaliz­ ing,” when I speak of “no end that cannot be reached,” are things which are subject to too [i.e., ethical principle], and therefore one can lead the most active of public fives without increase of it, and one can five in the extremity

of withdrawal without loss of it. It accommodates itself to times and situa­ tions, it fits its form to the reality about it. Where does one go that there is not equalization? Where would one go that one cannot? This is what I mean by “equalizing” and “the possible.” For [in philosophy] it is necessary to fol­ low step by step and to exhaust the limits of reason; only in that way can one talk about a thing. But Chuang Chou does not proceed in that fashion. He starts by recount­ ing some tale in the realm of fantasy, and insists that somewhere in the dark and vague confusion of it all there lies what he calls too. What careless per­ son with no patience for details is not delighted by such simplicity, and anx­ ious to adopt it? And as for persons who find themselves rebuked by the strict principles of morality and propriety, or whose ambitions have been frustrated by the conditions of their time, how many of them feel benefited by such theories and drawn to them! Of course it is unnecessary to mention those who felt this way among the Cheng-shih and Hsi-ning factions.84 But even among men known in the world as leading Confucians there are frequently en­ countered those who, on suffering setbacks, fall back on such ideas, seeking solace and diversion. In short, it can only be said that none of them know the meaning of righteousness . . .8S Liu’s argument here is entirely directed against the central ideas of the chapter “Ch’i-wu lun” in Chuang-tzu, which closes with the anecdote illustrated in the painting on which he wrote this essay. Chuang-tzu, awaking after dreaming he was a butterfly, asks: “Am I Chuang Chou who dreamed I was a butterfly, or am I really a butterfly dreaming I am Chuang Chou?” This chapter sums up the Taoist concept of the relativity of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and all the other distinctions which Confucianism meticulously maintained. To Chuangtzu, such distinctions are essentially inconsequential. Liu states in the beginning of his essay that he simply does not know what Chuang-tzu meant by the butterfly metaphor. If Chuang-tzu chooses to speculate that there are no distinctions or restrictions in the realm of fantasy, he has the right to do so, but fantasy after all is not reality. Real equaliza­ tion and power can come only through recognizing die omnipresence of an ethical Too. Throughout this essay we see Taoism rejected on several grounds. First, it is irrational; it relies on “dark and vague confusion.” Second, it ignores the fundamental ethical questions. The repudiation of true and false, of right and wrong, is self-deception that has evil social con­ sequences. Selfish concern solely with one’s own immediate good is both evil and impractical to Liu. Taoists fall back on primitive ways, rejecting civilization, but the security they seek is not to be had in that way. Liu’s faith is in a Confucian concept of security to be gained through the application of human intelligence in ordering society and maintaining standards of morality.

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Third, and of most interest here, Taoists in Liu's mind are weak defeatists; they are frustrated persons seeking easy solutions. Taoism is to them a respectable-sounding cover for their inability to meet the problems of life, to maintain their integrity and to do what society expects of them. This aspect of Taoism he rejects most positively. He rejects it for himself, and he warns others to avoid confusion which may result from careless use of terms that are capable of a Taoist interpre­ tation. Note in this connection his "Explanation of ‘The Studio of Stu­ pidity’ Scholars and gentlemen in recent ages have often selected words meaning ignorance and stupidity and lack of refinement—things in themselves not at all laudable—as their studio names. Such persons are not necessarily really like that, nor are they intentionally making a mere gesture of humility. There is, to be sure, some reason in it; their intent can be of two kinds. It may be that they are distressed by the great departure from ethical standards as evidenced in the lack of integrity and the low public morality. In this case their intent is to cling to fundamental values as a land of self­ corrective. Thus they adopt such names with the feeling that it is necessary to do so, and their intent is as if to say: “Rather than err in that direction, I would prefer to err in this one.” Having this kind of attitude, they are guilty of no moral fault. Or it may be that some are expressing the ideas of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, in which case it is quite a different matter. They feel that the whole world, past and present, must inevitably revert to such a state [of ignorance and lack of refinement] in order to approach the Too with no expenditure of effort. They retain all their resources in order to keep themselves whole. They adopt such names as a matter of preference, and not because they feel compelled to do so. Their purpose is to benefit themselves, and nothing more. Should the former theory be generally practiced, it would cause every­ body to uphold the basic values, and would not be without benefit to the world at large. But if the latter should come to be widely accepted, then all the people in the world would take to crude rusticity and would flee from the world; how far its harmful effects would spreadl Alas! Even in so small a matter the subtleties of intent and method and the distinction between righteousness and selfishness can be so great as this! One cannot be careless in such things . . ,86 In another essay w ritten on a similar theme and with a similar pur­ pose in mind, Liu again states this idea very forcefully. He grants that Lao-tzu's concept of the Too has certain admissible features, but con­ demns its practical manifestations as self-centered individualism, as incompatible w ith ethics, and as potentially disastrous to the nation and the people. This is in an essay explaining the name of “The Studio of W ithdrawal.” The use of such a Taoist-sounding name is permissible, Liu feels, if it is used in the self-corrective sense, but not if it is used in the Taoist sense. “I am delighted,” he says of his friend, “about Chung-

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li s withdrawal, but at the same time I want him to be most careful about his own reasons for having chosen to withdraw.”87 To sum up, Liu Yin evidently was very clear-minded about Taoist thought and its implications. That is not to say that he was conscious of Neo-Confucian borrowings from Taoism, i.e., that he would have explained them as such, or that he wished to rout them from the canon. But he was very conscious of a gulf between his own Confucian ortho•

He was particularly sensitive to the fact that withdrawal seemed to imply the acceptance of Taoist principles and emphatically denied the implication. Thus we must look beyond Taoism for the explanation of Liu’s withdrawal. LIU YIN AS A VOICE OF PROTEST

The real reason for Liu’s eremitism is by now clear. “To serve under such conditions would be to show lack of respect for too.” Times were hard. Liu’s teacher Yao Shu withdrew to a life of seclusion and teaching at Mount Su-men in protest against the corruption of government and the sense of defilement he felt on participating in it. Liu’s fellow scholar at Su-men, Hsü Heng, whose sense of responsibility led him repeatedly to serve in high positions at court, nonetheless was frequently overcome with despair, and frequently resigned out of a sense of frustration and protest. Throughout the Yiian period it became increasingly difficult for men of integrity to remain in office. Liu had no less desire than others to achieve fame and honor, but he had a clearer perception of the ex­ tent of the compromise that office-holding would demand of him. More­ over, having early fixed for himself an ideal of purity, he was more than usually sensitive in ethical matters, with the result that his personal bent reinforced his objective conclusions. Only one decision was possible. He stubbornly refused to serve, devoted himself to teaching others the same moral standards by which he lived (most of his students refused appointments), and by implication rebuked those who did serve, espe­ cially those who served dishonorably. In addition, as we have seen, he occasionally gave vent to his feelings in his writings, above all in his poetry. If one reads Liu’s poetry with care, one finds in it much that can be taken as the expression of his resentment. There is nothing explicit or dramatic; nothing of the ringing accents of a Tom Paine or the incisive satire of a Voltaire. No precedent for either existed in the China of Liu Yin, and nothing in Liu Yin’s life is without precedent. Yet the pro­ test is there. Its influence can only be estimated, but it must have been significant

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Consider die following stanza: When one is bom in a degenerate and disorderly age And there is no one worthy of being called a ruler, who would want to serve? If one must drift and float like a cross-current in a measureless ocean, Is it because one would have chosen to do so? This stanza is quoted out of context. Does it really mean what it seems here to mean, or is there perhaps some less subversive explanation? As it happens, the above stanza is the first four lines in a poem of fourteen lines; die remaining lines speak of the pleasures of peaceful rural exist­ ence, and the poem ends w ith an expression of the people's cause for rejoicing in the good fortune of having an emperor whose might assures their peace and happiness. Moreover, the poem is one of a collection w ritten to the rhyme patterns and poetic forms of T ao Yiian-ming.88 It is usually possible to construe these poems as poetic extensions of the mood of T a o s originals, thereby making them Liu's conception of the voice of T ao, rather than the voice of Liu himself. In their poetic ambi­ guity, it is also often possible to see them as philosophic reflections on theoretical rather than on actual conditions. It is precisely this poetic ambiguity that Liu relied on as a veil for his true intent, a veil that could protect him without obscuring his meaning from those readers by whom he wanted to be understood. Ch’ien Mu, the modem scholar and his­ torian of Chinese thought, has quoted the above stanza as an expression of Liu Yin's true feelings about his own environment and his own fate;391 wholly concur with this interpretation. However, in bald trans­ lation and out of context, the poem's essential ambiguity is lost, and no problem of interpretation seems to exist. The degree to which transla­ tion represents interpretation and eliminates the ambiguity which is a consciously-employed element in the original must be kept in mind. If I am right about Liu Yin’s intentions, it is in this collection of poems w ritten on the model of T ao Yiian-ming’s poetry that we find the most profound expression of Liu's protest. Liu’s seven poems written matching the form and rhyme of Tao's “Ho Yung P m Shih (T n Praise of Poor Scholars”) are of interest here, because Liu has adopted Tao's subject as well as his form. The fourth is as follows: Sticks and stones can bear being spit upon, Minister Lou Shih-te is not alone in that. And if spitting were as rain. Not even the most intemperate man would react to it. To be without preconceptions is the “upright way.” To suppress one's natural feelings is in truth the way of Chuang Chou. “What is beyond my own self is of no concern to me.”

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"What does it matter to me if one stands by my side with breast and arms bare!” Po I looked upon die whole world And wished that all men might stand with him. I say that it was Liu-hsia Hui who was narrow-minded; Let the reader himself find my reasons for saying so. The allusions in this poem are to a historical figure of the T ang dynasty, and to two officials-tumed-recluse who are discussed and compared both in the Analects and in Mencius. Lou Shih-te ( 630-99 ) of the T ang was a man whose forbearance was so great that he did not approve of a man’s so much as flickering an eyelid if someone spat in his face. When someone asked him, "Do you mean you would just wipe it off and nothing more?” he replied that he would not even bother to wipe it off; he would be so unmoved that he would let the spittle dry by itself.40 This, says Liu, is unnatural in humans, but comes naturally to sticks and stones, if there is any virtue in men’s adopting the standards of sticks and stones! Liu extends this idea, and applies it to his comparison of the two figures of antiquity. To be without preconceptions is bad; it implies being without ethical standards, since ethical standards must be fixed in ad­ vance so that they can be adhered to under all conditions. The "upright way” is the way in which Confucius described the conduct of Liu-hsia Hui, and it is not unqualified praise; it implies a kind of straightforward integrity without any sensitivity to higher moral principles. Lou Shih-te and Liu-hsia Hui, Liu feels, were alike in unnaturally suppressing their feelings, in insensitivity to feelings of defilement. This is Taoistic (line 6); the Taoist has his whole world within himself, hence cannot be de­ filed or revolted by his surroundings or by what people do to him (line7). The poet’s real intent is seen in his comparison of Liu-hsia Hui and Po I in the last lines. Line 8 quotes Liu-hsia Hui in the anecdote told in Mencius, from which the poem takes its tex t Mencius says of Po I that he "would not serve a prince whom he did not approve, nor associate with a friend whom he did not esteem . . . He thought it necessary, if he happened to be standing with a villager whose cap was not righdy adjusted, to leave him with a high air, as if he were going to be defiled.” Liu-hsia Hui, on the other hand, . . . was not ashamed to serve an impure prince, nor did he think it low to be an inferior officer. When advanced to employment, he did not conceal his virtue, but made it a point to carry out his principles. When neglected and left without office, he did not murmur. When straitened by poverty, he did not grieve. Accordingly, he had a saying, "You are you, and I am I. Although

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you stand by my side with breast and arms bare, or with your body naked, how can you defile me?” Therefore self-possessed, he companied with men indifferently, at the same time not losing himself. When he wished to leave, if pressed to remain in office, he would remain. He would remain in office, when pressed to do so, not counting it required by his purity to go away. Mencius said, “Po I was narrow-minded, and Liu-hsia Hui was wanting in self-respect. The superior man will not follow either narrow-minrlpHnp